Fourteen years ago when I started this blog, I chose the name “Know That I Am” because it describes the paradox of my faith. I have always known a deep yearning for God but struggled with having a solid sense of relationship with God. I want to “know” the God with no name who simply says “I am.” Bur, how can anyone know God?
Mark 12:30 states “You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This passage is a daily part of my life through the Morning Prayer Service from the Northumbria Community.
Call: Who is it that you seek?
Response: We seek the Lord our God.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your heart?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your soul?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your mind?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your strength?
Response: Amen. Christ, have mercy.
Answering these four questions each day with the affirmation of “Amen” has reminded me to engage in all four ways of loving God through my heart, my soul, my mind and my strength. However, when I was younger, I thought only one way of knowing God was necessary.
My years pursuing a Master of Divinity at Wesley Theological Seminary are a good example. Taking classes in Christian theology, scripture, and history, I sought to know God with my mind. The seminary seemed to teach that an intellectual knowledge of God that would settle all my doubts and questions. I thought that if I mastered knowing God with my mind, I would find peace from my doubts. However, the answers I developed fell short of resolving my doubts, and just raised new questions. Completing the degree did not mean that I had settled anything.
Yet, during my time in seminary there were many seeds planted about the other ways to know and love God. Those seeds waited for years before I noticed them and nurtured them. So while singing in the Chapel Choir was important to my faith, it was decades later that I understood how music emerges from my soul.
It surprises me when specific memories of my years in seminary come to mind in my ordinary daily life. Yet when I take the time to pause and notice that memory, I see one of the seeds planted during that time. Curiously they are not the intellectual issues and topics I studied or wrote papers about. They are the other aspects of knowing the “I Am” I know to be God, with my heart, my soul and my strength.
