The God You Can Know

Recently I was listening to an interview with a pastor named Louie Giglio on the radio and in this interview Giglio was talking about people that had impacted his life growing  up.  Giglio grew up in the Atlanta area as a child and came in contact with a Christian leader in Atlanta that impacted his life in his teens and early 20's.  This man's influence was so profound in Giglio's life, that it changed the trajectory of his future life and ministry.  The man that Giglio was talking about was named Dan DeHaan.  As Giglio spoke in this interview, he talked about how there was something special about DeHaan.  When Giglio was around Dan DeHaan, Giglio sensed that he seemed to know God in a way that was different than Giglio and in such a deep way, that it made Giglio want to know God more and pursue God more urgently.  Dan DeHaan was a man that was much with God and people that were around him could sense it.  After listening to this interview with Giglio, I went down to my basement and found a book that Dan DeHaan wrote called "The God You Can Know".  Since picking it up, it is a book that God has been really using in my life.  In his opening chapter on knowing God, DeHaan writes, "Mind-preoccupation will determine our goals, our enjoyment of reality and our ability to affect other people's lives for the better....It is the conscious worship of God's character that conforms us to what we worship....Some people brood over their past victories or failures.  They become past conscious.  Their day begins with the past.  As a result, they can never really be what they should be right now for this moment. ...We always become what we worship."

As I spend my day focusing on problems or media or the past, I reap instability.  As I focus on God's character and his presence, setting my heart "on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God" I reap steadfastness, confidence and assurance that comes from faith in Christ.

As I watch and listen to media, I am constantly struck by how quickly things are changing and the instability of the present. The world my kids will grow up in will be so different from the world that I grew up in. Yet even in the midst of this unstable world, in the present, my kids will be watching my faith.  My kids listen to my words (sometimes) watch what I do, but also and most importantly, watch my faith. In this quickly changing world, I am asking God to help me grow in "God confidence" that comes from filling my mind, imagination and heart with the reality of the enthroned Christ.  This is the God we are now able to know through the work of Jesus Christ. He is the God we can know and the revelation of God's glory found in Christ that should preoccupy our minds and imaginations.

The second chapter of DeHaan's book, The God You Can Know is all about the glory of God.  It is fun to read this chapter and see how it has influenced Louie Giglio's teaching and ministry even to this day.  When God's glory is big, the world and its problems are small.  Life always shrinks God's size, yet Scripture "right sizes" God. I highly recommend this book and know you will be blessed through it's reading, just as I have been blessed.  In our quickly changing world, knowing God and experiencing his glory in the person of Jesus Christ is the ballast that will hold us fast during the rapid changing times of the present.