E210 The Knowing — The Personal Nature of Sharing My God 

This is Faith to Witness 99 Motivating us to leave the 99 and go find the one.

Suppose you need a little motivation. You want a deeper faith, stronger witness. 

Here’s the Top Takeaway from this week’s episode. 

Bearing my witness is deeply personal. It requires I share personal convictions that live privately, in the most sacred corner of my heart. Taking these convictions public compromises my earthly privacy. Yet nothing is private to my divine God. I can go forward with his sovereign confidence, that he will protect what we have together in the space between  those who may try to reduce him to something other than sovereign by their words.

Jeremiah 32:17: “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”

God puts you in conversation with someone to represent who he is by how he made you. 

Stay with us for the conversation. e210 

E210 The Knowing — The Personal Nature of Sharing My God 

(part 1 of 3)

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What does it actually take to plant a mustard seed in a person’s conscience? People have told me all my life that I speak so easily with others about deeper topics. In my nearly 30-year professional career of raising money, this deeper conversation was the foundation for building relationships with donors that in turn built a deeper trust to financially support an organization’s mission. 

Representing a mission is exhilarating to me—the clarity of it, the intent of it, and the intrigue of it—what would motivate a potential donor to see a connection to their values, their lives and the world they wanted to contribute to. And, the intrinsic reward a donor discovers from giving to the lives of others. It’s emotionally intoxicating in all the right ways. Helping people discover their own generosity of spirit. 

But surprisingly, when it comes to representing my relationship with God all that exhilaration slips through my fingertips, just far enough out of reach that I often fall back, a few steps shy of looking into the eyes of that deeper conversation. 

When it comes to sharing my relationship with Jesus Christ I typically stand face-to-face with three roadblocks I know well. Today I am going to start down this road. This is uncharted territory for sure. Right now, in the pregame of this journey, I think I have three roadblocks. 

Roadblock 1

The personal nature of it.

Roadblock 2 

The risk of it. 

Roadblock 3 

The Spirit of it 

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host. 

This is going to be difficult. It is going to be difficult because I have to project myself into a life I have not lived, or at least dig deep for memories that give me a little grounding in living a life without God. 

I’m not going down the more traditional apologetics road. We do address it on occasion. But I am guessing this will have value to some of you, my fellow humans, those of you who are not satisfied with a reactive “amen” mindset in how you live your life, passively waiting for others to say it first. You want to grow more and more into what happens when you abide more deeply in Jesus Christ. You want a stronger witness. So do I.

My apprehension mostly comes from how my relationship with God is what I have always privately called, “the knowing.” I have always known. I have never consciously doubted he exists. I have never been without his presence. I have lived through long seasons of disobedience, but my conscience, my heart, my soul has never parted ways with my Creator. Not that I know of.

But I can’t tell someone that if they dig deep they will just “know” the truth about their Creator can I? Even if this is is ultimately where they need to end up, I have to bear witness that keeps me responsible to why God has put me in front of that person, at that moment. 

I’m a little proud of myself because this time I did not bury the lead. The Knowing is where I am headed. To explore it, test it, explain it, and most of all, let God’s word and Holy Spirit convict me of how to share it through the words of Jesus. There’s the exhilaration beginning to rise… but not without the familiar thoughts about my personal roadblocks, and what lies ahead. 

 

When Something Deeply Personal is Called Out

During my pre-teen years, I went to a church camp, Camp Mennoscah, every summer. The memories that come with ease are of my first boy crush, crafts, and the camaraderie that comes from sharing secrets across bunk beds, new friends and a cool cabin counselor. Swimming with ear plugs, campfire songs and s’mores, and salutations from the Bible. Memory verses and making myself be unafraid of the dark when I had to stalk my way to the restroom building.

But that’s not all. 

My final year, I had my first period at camp. My cabin counselor stood in for my birth mother. She was prepared, kind, and reassuring. And although I was young to turn toward irony, I did. My childhood had been anything but traditional, but really? This is such an uncertain moment for a girl. It is deeply personal, and while having this happen at home provides the cover of adapting your daily routine, a co-conspiracy with your mother, giving yourself some space to adjust, this was not possible for me. I loved to swim. I spent every free waking moment in the camp pool. So what was a deeply personal rite of childhood passage was soon public. When I didn’t swim. And why. It didn’t scar me, no one was cruel, but it exposed me to how private a person I really was. In friendships, I championed others, I freely gave love, laughter, and support, but I didn’t give away who I really was. At the time, perhaps my ability to create enough distance from it to recognize the irony, saved me. When I got home, my birth mother was so disheartened that she hadn’t been there. Our conversation redeemed my embarrassed self, because I could give her the reassurance she needed that it was okay. 

I accepted that I would not always have a say in when something deeply personal to me would be called out. It wasn’t the first time.

1 Peter 3:15

 

15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

Getting Personal About Sharing God

My initial roadblock in sharing God is the personal nature of it. Because conviction, salvation and redemption are unique to each person. As Jesus gave his life for me, he did it knowing every last thing about me, because he created me. The power of this comes directly from his nature.

Genesis 1:27

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

I am the image, the representation, as it is manifested in me—my personality, my soul—that God wants in front of this person. When I share even a tiny piece, a small window of insight about that which feels so precious, so powerful, at times, painful, I am sharing his image through my pursuit of his nature. 

That is a beautiful thing. 

My testimony acts as personal proof of God’s presence and power through his grace in this world. The proof lives in the center of my unfolding journey yet praises, praises because Jesus is way ahead of us in this redemption. The apostle Paul tells us to work out our salvation. 

Philippians 2:12–13

“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

When I share God, whatever depth and breadth, with someone, I do it to honor his work in me. 

 

Every Reaction is Personal. Let God Lay His Hand Between You.

While it feels so personal me, that I am the only one with skin in the game, this is not true. It is no less personal to the person receiving it, regardless of the reaction. 

Every reaction is personal. Regardless of what relationship that person has with God. 

When I think about the depth of Jesus’s compassion, I think about how he is absolutely tuned in to how the person he is redeeming feels. He knows the depth of every soul. I want to respond to someone with that same compassion that reaches the depth of their soul. 

Our conviction, our salvation and redemption are unique to a timeless God. He knows what will come between you and another person. When you share God he will lay his hand on you. He will protect you.

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

1 You have searched me, Lord,

    and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue

    you, Lord, know it completely.

5 You hem me in behind and before,

    and you lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too lofty for me to attain.

This tells me that we can trust God to protect our precious love for him when we bring that love to others. And David is right, knowing this is too wonderful, too lofty to attain.

 

The Power of Your Personal Touch

 

Psalm 139 guides me to ask this question: Why has God put this person in front of me? 

Two reasons: to bear witness to my Psalm 139-self. God is putting me in conversation with someone to represent who he is by how he made me. To bring that person closer to him. And, to help me grow in how I abide in Christ.

Paul tells us in Colossians 3:10, to “take off our old self” and the previous way of living behind us:

Colossians 3:10-12

10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 

Bearing my witness is deeply personal. It requires I share personal convictions that live privately, in the most sacred corner of my heart. Taking these convictions public compromises my earthly privacy. 

Yet nothing is private to my divine God. I can go forward with his sovereign confidence, that he will protect what we have together in the space between those who may try to reduce him to something other than sovereign by their words.

Jeremiah 32:17: “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”

Consider this: God puts you in conversation with someone to represent who he is by how he made you. God is your Creator, God is intentional, and God protects his glory, his purpose and his timeless grace. 

Stay with us for E211, The Knowing – The Risk of Sharing My God (part 2 of 3)

God’s faith to your witness. Go find the one.