Chatting with God – NotUnknown.com by Keith B.
First, a confession. I steal…without shame. The knot of guilt burrowed in my stomach until I rediscovered a quote from T.S. Eliot – “good writers borrow, great writers steal.” I don’t identify as a great writer. I do identify as a thief. I steal stories, quotes, ideas, anything I can take and improve upon. My friends and my fellow addicts call me out when they recognize a previously shared topic, check-in, step study idea. I confess mining bible studies, Sunday school classes, and recovery meetings for fantastic blog posts and chapter ideas. So, I will ask forgiveness now. This post is shamelessly stolen and maybe improved upon a tiny bit.
It starts with Leviticus 19:2 – “You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
Two weeks ago, we had a guest teacher in our Sunday school class. She taught on the holiness of God using Leviticus chapters 1 – 8. I encourage you to look at this scripture. Scintillating stuff for sure. Detailed descriptions on how to bring sacrifices to God. How to cut the animal’s throat, where to place the blood, what parts of the animal to burn where. Makes you think God is picky. He isn’t picky, according to our guest teacher. He’s holy. To allow me in His presence takes a little work on my part and a lot on His. He is holy and sinless and clean. I, on the other hand, am not. Hence the detail around how to cleanse me to be allowed in His presence just so He can have a relationship with me. Pursuing righteousness makes more sense to me now. God craves and desires fellowship with me. Probably not too much to ask for me to pursue the same with Him.
Ok, warning. More theft of ideas. Last week in a recovery meeting, our leader shared an incredible topic. He wanted us to consider how we communicate with God. I had no idea the creativity many of us have in how we communicate with God. One guy sees God in bugs. I kid you not. Bugs. We differ greatly here. I validate the existence of Satan by the existence of bugs, specifically spiders and anything else with greater than four legs. My friend finds evidence and communion with God through His creation. Bugs and nature and everything else around us. Wow. I admit I never saw God in bugs until now. I guess no more squishing spiders. Ok, rigorous honesty, I won’t promise no more squishing spiders. I promise to have some guilt when I do.
At my friend’s urging, I spent time with this question: how do I chat with God? To pursue holiness and righteousness, I must commune with God, so how do I personally do so? Two main ways. I like Bible studies with other men. Studies where I pore over His word and seek truths and learn what others discover from the same scripture I study. I write. I carry a notebook with me and jot down things that I hear God in, seriously that’s what I do. Then I take them and form blog posts, book chapters, however they fit. In them, I chat with God through telling you where I meet Him daily. Chatting with God, for me, means pursuing holiness so we have something to chat about.