As amazing and true as this is I don't think it should be the primary way we understand God or bring others to understand him. Most people don't come to relationship with God by considering such things. Most people come to relationship with God through Love. While the study of God is a good and noble thing it is empty unless it leads into a deeper relationship with Him. While understanding that our faith is supported by a reasoned study of the world around us, it bears it's greatest fruit when we can praise and thank our Creator for his creation.

I find it important for my faith to consider such things. Rarely, however, is this how we should approach relationship with God or introduce others to Him. You see we don't really know God by knowing facts about God, just as we don't really know a person by knowing facts about a person. You can study the human being "David" with any number of tools of the intellect: Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Politics, and more. In doing so you can learn certain facts about "David." But will you really know me? Will you know me in the way you know your spouse, child, parents or best friend?

The same is true for God. We can know about God by studying theology and examining creation but we can only really know Him by entering into a personal relationship with him. We get to know God much the same way we get to know the people around us through words and language, time spent together, shared experience, and common passions.

We get to know God when we learn to hear and understand His voice. He speaks to us in the still small voice of his Spirit moment by moment and he has spoken to us in scripture. You see scripture tells us about God but in a very real way it is also God speaking to us personally. We in turn get to speak personally back to God at a moments notice when we simply take the time to pray. We grow closer to God when the things we care about start to mirror the things God cares about, when we act the way He acts and most fundamentally when we love the way God loves.

So embrace the amazing creation that surrounds us and wonder at the designs that reveal something of our designer but let us never forget our first calling. The purpose of our lives is described by our Lord Jesus this way "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength... (and) Love your neighbor as yourself.'

David B. Moore

This blog post was inspired in part by the book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin.