Hosea 6:5: “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
Genesis 4:1: “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.”
I am now on my sixth day of searching for Whom my soul loveth. I understand now about mercy toward God, that is bring pleasure to God, that which will allow God to just love me. Yet, he desires something else from me, knowledge of God. Hey, I have that one really sewed up. I mean I have spent my entire life learning about God, gaining knowledge of God. I am a Bible College and Seminary graduate, I have a PhD, I’ve written many books about God. Over the past forty years I have spent minimum of 3-4 hours a day studying the Word of God in the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, I have studied the wisdom of Jewish rabbis and sages, I have studied the Talmud, I have taught Old Testament and Hebrew in a Bible College for seventeen years can anyone acquire more knowledge than that of God?
One of my readers wrote me a question about Abel in Genesis 4 yesterday. As I read Genesis 4:1 there I saw it, the word yada’. Adam knew (yada’) Eve his wife. It is the very same word used for knowledge in Hosea 6:5. The preposition of is not in the Hebrew in this verse. It is simply knowledge God.
I recall as a teenager how we would laugh about the way the English translation tried to be politically correct in describing this special relationship between a man and woman. “ I mean that is some kind of knowing,” we would say. We have many vulgar terms in our society for this relationship. Radio and television trying to get around censors made up terms like making love, doing it, etc. The best word I can think of that is least offensive and really best descriptive is intimacy. Better yet is the word know. This relationship is meant to know a person like not other.
Oddly, the Bible using the word yada’ which is really the word for knowledge was not an attempt to be politically correct but to actually give God’s heart and intent in this relationship. A man and woman who were to be joined in this relationship were to have a knowledge of each other that none other in this world would share. It was to be special, extremely personal, and performed only with the confines of a marriage covernant. A man was to know his wife’s heart in a way that no other man in this world would know it and so with the woman to the man’s heart. The Bible says that they then would become one.
Woody Allen said: “Just what do you mean do I know her, what do you mean by know, like in a Biblical sense?” I think as I search for the heart of God of the one Whom my soul loveth, I need to ask Woody Allen’s question. “What do I mean by knowing God? Knowing Him in a Biblical sense?” Not only does God desire to let Him love us which He desires more than any sacrifice we may make for Him, but even more important than even any offering we may give Him is that He wants to yada’ us, be intimate with us and we with Him.
I remember reading about a young porn star who married a 92 year old man. She insisted it was true love. Hey why not. I know what you are thinking, ok the guy was worth $250 million dollars, but I am sure that had nothing to do with it. She catered to the guy, gave him everything he wanted, kissed him loved on him, and did her best to know him (in the Biblical sense). Then when he died she hired a stable of attorneys to claim her right to the inheritance. She never dropped her claim that she loved the man. Have you ever asked yourself if you married God for His money? Have you ever asked yourself if you were nothing more than a gold digger? Sometimes it is as obvious as the motives of this porn star, but we just don’t realize it. We fool ourselves just as she fooled herself into thinking she really loved the guy when her real motives were something else. Ok, I am not being fair, maybe she loved the old goat. Stranger things have happened. But to the casual observer, it is hard to believe.
I have thought long and hard on it this week. Why am I so panic stricken over not feeling the presence of God. Is it that I fear I have lost favor with Him and thus I will receive no more favors from Him. I have to admit I think I do. I think I love and sought intimacy with God because deep within my heart I figured if I really became something special to God He will really bless me.
So I have taken a bold move. I have prayed to Him that my soul loveth that I truly want to love Him but I need to know it in my heart. So I asked him to not answer another prayer, to not bless me, to not make my books a success, to not give me bunches of friends but to just give me what I need to survive so I can just grow intimate with Him. I want to honestly stand before Him and say like old Job: “Though you slay me I will trust (Love) you.” Oh God how I want to love you.
I will be waiting to see what happens next. God will still be God.
Chaim, you struggle with the same “want” that I have. I have been following your quest. You as I do, hunger for the intimacy of Father’s love. When we don’t feel the closeness we have experienced we think that we have stepped away from the One that our soul longs for and loves. Maybe we have, but doesn’t our Father sometimes help us to grow in understanding who He is by letting us experience the feeling of what we think is the loss of His love and closeness to us. WE yearn for that intimacy of love.WE have tasted the sweetness of that intimacy that ONLY Father can give. I don’t think that either of us has an ulterior motive other than being in His presents and once again feeling that love. I don’t know that we may ever experience that intimacy during our earthly time. I know that He has let me understand/feel His closeness and love. I too feel like I have lost that closeness and love. In His time and when we understand that which we are to understand, then I think is when again we will feel that which we yearn for.