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Obstacles To Knowing God

By Jill Briscoe

Enrichment Journal Spring 2001

It was 1969, and a typically beautiful British autumn day. My husband came cheerily into the house, joined us at the evening meal, and announced, "Well, kids, we’re going to America." The three children’s eyes widened. David glanced a little nervously at his sister who was staring into her cup. Pete cracked a joke (his way of relieving the tension), and my heart pumped furiously. What would it mean for the Briscoe family? What would life hold for us?

"I know about America," David offered. "We did it in school this year." David did know a little about America. He had been made aware of its existence through education. But awareness wasn’t knowing. In the months of preparation that lay ahead, Stuart (who was already traveling in the U.S.A.) sent us photographs, or made wonderfully descriptive audiotapes, adding details to our knowledge. "They move houses on lorries—on the road?" Judy asked incredulously.

"Dad likes walking round shops?" Pete commented in awe, after one tape where Stuart had described the American mall.

"These people have the most wonderful way of painlessly taking your money out of your pocket," was his comment.

Information wasn’t knowing—really knowing what America was all about. But the more we became aware and gained information, the more we began to get excited. Dad brought home baseball hats, magnets for my fridge, and a Barbie doll for Judy. But even our warm feelings did not constitute a true knowing.

On November 11, 1970, we boarded a plane at London airport and, with all our goods packed in two suitcases apiece, traveled with our golden retriever Prince to O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois. Now the true knowing began. We had arrived

Ignorance

Knowing God is not awareness, information, or emotional stirrings. Knowing is being there—getting on a plane of faith and leaving behind a mere intellectual tip of the hat in God’s direction, or a stirring of spiritual longing, and actually arriving at your destination. And that, of course, is only the beginning of the true knowing.

Soon the Briscoes began their 24-year experience. Now they were in the U.S.A. The U.S.A. was soon into them in 1,000 different forms of first-hand realization and experience. False concepts collected in our former life needed to be abandoned as we embraced new realities. So it is with knowing God. We had to relearn some things; unlearn others. We discovered real knowing could only happen once we had settled down, became immersed in the culture, and adapted to a totally new and often strange way of life. The sooner we adapted, the quicker we would really know this wonderful new country, its people, and what God had brought us 3,000 miles to do.

The Importance of a Mentor

Attitude had an awful lot to do with our adjusting. For God’s sake, the kids’ sake, my husband’s sake, and my own sake, I fixed my heart, soul, and mind in God, and set to apply my strength and effort to know everything I could as soon as was humanly possible. I discovered it was a question of whether I really wanted to know. How badly did I really want to be part of it all? Would I respond rightly to the considerable culture shock of my new environment or would I cling to my 35 years of my way of doing things, my way of seeing things, my way of knowing things? Sometimes it helped to find another immigrant from the old country and swap notes—another English lass like me who could encourage me to work at it. I found such a one who had come 10 years before us and was effectively serving America and her people.

As a young believer I inhaled biographies of men and women who knew the Lord, loved the Lord, served the Lord, and were evangelistic in their zeal to make Him known. Men like Hudson Taylor, C.T. Studd, Adoniram Judson, William Carey, William and Catherine Booth, Mary Slessor, and Amy Carmichael. They generously shared their knowledge of God with me from the pages of those books and, like my English friend, helped me adjust my sights and go for it. These giants of the faith became my mentors. The stories of men and women God has greatly used can let us into the secrets of their knowing and enable us to make great progress toward maturity.

Maybe you found the Lord all by yourself and have never had a mentor or helper to holiness. I was led to Christ by a girl who discipled me. I hadn’t a clue that’s what was happening. I thought every new convert had someone like I did to assign me Christian books to read and report on; learn 20 verses (and their references) a week; teach me how to pray, study, and witness; and help me begin my world missions education.

I have since learned we are not all so helped. We don’t know all by ourselves how to ask the text questions and hear the answers, do a Scripture search through the Bible on some helpful topic, actually lead someone to Christ and not just influence them, or see prayer answered in dramatic fashion. We all need teachers; and, if we are not in an evangelical teaching church or environment, guessing doesn’t do it. We know we should read the Bible, but where do we begin, when do we do it, and how do we rightly interpret and apply what we read? Are there guidelines, rules, skills? The answer of course is yes, but guidelines need a guide and rules and skills need to be taught. A mentor can remove so many obstacles to truly knowing and experiencing God. Sometimes we need to take the initiative, as I did by reaching out to that English girl who knew so much more than I did, and ask a wise and experienced believer to help us.

Busyness

Another thing that can stop us from knowing God is busyness. Some of us are busy doing important things; some of us are busy doing unimportant things; some of us are just busy being busy. There is some busyness that is blessed busyness and there is some that is a bane. I have wrestled many years with this. As a Christian worker who loves her Lord, I long to hear His "Well done" at the end of the day. I fear to hear I have underdone or overdone. How busy is too busy? Who will tell me? He will.

Leaving Things Undone

The art of leaving things undone is a learned art—whether it is housework, raising children, church work, or work in the secular marketplace. There is no end to the jobs that need to be done, and if you love the Lord it seems there’s no end to the obligation to do it all yourself with only a little help from your friends.

There’s a big lost world to be won and never enough people to win it. There are endless tasks to be tackled in the home and with the family, and the days never seem to be long enough to get to them all. What’s more, the workplace seems to become more frantic each day. What is our part in the all that needs doing? we wonder. That is the big question. How busy is too busy? When should we be doing and when should we be being? It seems to me guilt attaches itself to my spirit whatever I choose. "Lord," I found myself praying not long ago, "what is my part in the all?"

Many of us have writhed through sermons that seemed to have our names attached to them—sermons that talk pointedly about being too busy to be blessed. As women, it seems we are reintroduced to Martha each week. But after we take time out to be blessed, we find our heart strangely motivated to be busy. Jesus doesn’t condemn busyness, just our anxiety about it.

Even though there is a world to be won, God expects me to first attend to the mission field between my own two feet. That’s my bit of the world, and I will certainly be held accountable for it. There are hungry millions to be fed, but God only expects me to offer up the fish and bread in my own lunch basket. There are children to be raised, but I am responsible first and foremost to raise my own in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And there are certainly lots of Christians to be discipled, counseled, and helped to keep on keeping on. But I didn’t save them, and I don’t have to keep them. It’s all a matter of the art of leaving things undone.

Jesus knew how to do that. One day He said to His Heavenly Father, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do," and went home to heaven at the age of 33. Think about that. Think of all the lepers He left behind; all the hungry, maimed, blind, and demon possessed who stayed hungry, maimed, blind, and demon possessed because He’d finished the work God gave Him to do. "How could He have finished the work that needed to be done?" you may be tempted to ask. It doesn’t say, "He finished the work that needed to be done." It says, "He finished the work God gave Him to do." And that’s why it’s important to learn the secret of pleasing God. "I do always those things that please Him," Jesus said.

When we please Him by getting on with the work He gave us to do, we will find we will stay close to Him. We won’t get so busy we get dizzy with doing. We’ll come to terms with the dying and the crying and pray more effectively that God would thrust out other laborers to do the work He’s given them to do, while we busy ourselves with our own blessed business. And most important, we won’t rob others of the joy of hearing their "well done" at the end of the day. Maybe we should examine our hearts and make sure we can say, "I do always those things that please Him." If we can strive to do that, we will have learned the art of leaving things undone and find ourselves only doing our part of the all.

Pettiness

What stops us staying in touch with God? Ignorance, busyness, and often pettiness. We can become "jot and tittle" people. Jot and tittle people are little people who don’t care a jot about the big issues—they are too titillated with their tittles. All of us can fall into that trap. I constantly ask the Lord to keep me from having a mini mind-set—from thinking small, easy, below average. I’ll never escape from this tendency because having a worldview demands something from me in terms of life effort, vision, personal education, and a lot of my valuable time. Being maxi-minded instead of petty results in me trying to make a significant difference where I live: to be salt—arresting corruption—and light in a dark place.

If we can personalize pettiness, we could say that pettiness bothers her head with whether her body is too hot or too cool as she sits in a cushy church sanctuary; whether someone took her spot in the church parking lot; or whether anyone noticed or acknowledged her latest contribution to whatever she contributed to. Pettiness bites and devours her brothers and sisters in the Lord and stops her ever hearing the voice of God through the pastor, who pettiness insists, is either too shallow or too deep. It’s a pity to be petty; it stops us from knowing God. Jesus said we mustn’t be jot and tittle people. We should not spend all our energy crossing our Ts and dotting our Is. If we do, we will stay small-minded and small-impact people and may never learn to write Jesus’ name freely and creatively in other people’s hearts.

One day Jesus listened to His disciples arguing about lunch. "Lift up your eyes," He advised them. "Look on the fields," He said, "for they are white already to harvest." If we have our eyes fixed on the loaf of bread in our hands, we’ll never see the One who grew the grain in the first place. We may find ourselves arguing which bread is best—whole wheat or white. The Lord needs to deliver us from being fascinated and captivated by our lunch. May larger hungers and the needs of a spiritually starved world lift us above the pettiness that so easily besets us.

Laziness

What keeps me from growing close to God? Ignorance, busyness, pettiness, and of course laziness will do it—sheer unadulterated laziness. We simply can’t be bothered to be bothered. We are too lazy to get up in the morning because we are too lazy to go to bed early at night. Don’t say, "I can’t"—say, "I won’t." Laziness is a willful decision not to go to good extremes. Our excuse for not being spiritually disciplined is we don’t want to be called weird. We need to be balanced, laziness advises. Do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of the other. The operative words are a little bit. Laziness yawns when she hears a talk on laziness. She tunes out easily, too lazy to listen to the application. She’s too lazy to concentrate on anything spiritually stretching at all, preferring drama to doctrine and music to mastering the Scriptures. She wants to be entertained not educated. If electives are offered at church, she carefully selects ones that are titled, "How To Find Rest for Your Soul" or "How To Pray Effectively in 5 Minutes Flat." She also arranges to work late at the office during missions festival. It’s amazing how hard laziness will work to make sure she’s lazy. I find laziness in my own life needs confronting.

Committing Yourself to Others

Being naturally lazy at heart (the flesh is weak, remember), I find I need to make some task commitments to real live people and not just to God. I find someone somewhere to teach. (You don’t have to be a teacher to do this.) Just make an appointment twice a week with someone not quite as far along in the faith as you are (and you can always find one of those). This means I have to be in the Word, so I can pass it along to someone I am meeting for that specific purpose. If it’s the same person I have committed myself to, I will need to have something new to say each time we meet. Laziness doesn’t like this—but God does.

I also help myself in regard to laziness by choosing a day (mine is Sunday) when I promise the Lord and myself I’ll jot a note, scribble a letter, make a phone call, or send something to encourage or build up someone, somewhere, somehow. Having a certain day of the week helps me to avoid laziness’ suggestions of procrastination. I’ve noticed laziness’ favorite day of the week is tomorrow. Laziness lives, thinks, dreams about tomorrow which effectively negates the importance of today. We all need to live today as if we had no other, knowing full well tomorrow never comes.

There Is a Price To Pay

Perhaps we fear the cost of it all. Sitting in a missions conference listening to the speaker talking about leaving everything to follow Him, I wondered if that above all things is the biggest obstacle to knowing Him. Jesus called Peter to follow Him. The story is in Luke 5. Peter knew Christ. Andrew had introduced him to the Messiah and Peter had been hanging around Jesus in his spare time. But today was different. For Peter it was to mean leaving everything and following Jesus. What did that mean for Peter and his family? It meant leaving his business, and security (What did his wife need to do without a paycheck? I wonder), his home and environment, his trade, his independence. Peter must have found the cost. But because he experienced the power of Christ in the miraculous catch of fish (verse 6), he fell at the Lord’s feet. True, he didn’t say, "Take me with You," but rather, "Depart from me" (verse 8). But his heart was captured and his mind convinced—this Jesus was Lord.

When he heard the Lord’s words, "Don’t be afraid, from now on you will catch men," he beached his boat and began a knowing-God experience he could never have had without paying a price.

In my own journey of faith, it has often been fear of what it might mean that has kept me from beaching some particular boat and getting on with it. But we learned like Peter to "do it scared"—to follow anyway. Someone has said courage is "fear that has said its prayers." Saying my prayers will not banish fear, but courage will overpower the fear that prayed, packed its bag, and set off with the Master—leaving the safe, familiar, and even loved people and things behind for the sake of His Word and the gospel.

There is a cost to knowing God. There has to be. Because the more you know, the more you long others would too, and that longing could well take you not only across the street, but perhaps even around the world. I have observed that if God does lead you out with Him, you can’t pack up your boat in your suitcase—you’ll need to beach it.

When the church invited us to leave England and travel to the U.S.A. in 1970, they asked us to beach our boats, come with the clothes we needed, and that was all. It was hard—but necessary—and there was some cost involved. Up to then we had known God as Provider; now we were invited to know Him in a new and deeper way, but it involved cost. There was some fear on all of our parts, but we followed Him and in the doing left our boat in England. Sometimes I long for it—sometimes (very occasionally) a great wave of nostalgia sweeps over me for my Galilee, the quiet meadows, serene peaks, and golden daffodils—but that’s how it is, part of the price. The cost of obedience, however, is totally outweighed by the depth and joy of a new knowing of the Lord.

Worldliness

So what in the end can keep me from coming closer to God? I can. In the final analysis, it is that sinful self—the flesh—the old man I have been describing. Selfishness dresses herself in many different clothes. It is my fallen nature that knows how to be hostile to God without anyone telling me how. It is the sin that spoiled me that keeps God at arm’s length, that backs off when serious sin needs forgiving, or an entrenched habit faced and overcome. The main problem is I don’t want to be like Jesus; I want to be like me. That’s the essence of the flesh. Worldliness is selfishness strutting her stuff. To see is to want, to want is having to have. Self is all for getting, not giving, living not dying, controlling not releasing. What stops Jill Briscoe staying near to God? Jill Briscoe. And you know it never gets any easier. In fact, the older you get, the harder it gets. It’s as if we think old age gives us the inalienable right to opt out of spiritual orbit to settle for settling for nothing very much; to be a spiritual midget and proud of it. I wonder what the Ancient of Days thinks about that.

Paul talks about this in Romans 7:21­24; the battle that rages within is one that will rage till it’s over and we are home in heaven. We have two natures warring inside of us. It’s a bit like the English bird that lays her eggs in her nest and sets about hatching them. Along comes the Cuckoo bird (a lazy bird) that can’t bother building her own nest, so she plops her egg in the nest already occupied—two natures in one nest. The diligent bird hatches all the eggs. Now the Cuckoo chick—bigger and nastier—grows and grows, snatching the food and taking over. Eventually she tips the little rightful owners out and reigns supreme. What a picture of the flesh nature. It all depends which nature we are feeding which will control life in the nest.

Whether it’s ignorance, busyness, pettiness, laziness, or worldliness, it’s our innate selfishness that needs to be hammered to the cross of Christ momentby moment and day by day. Who will take the hammer and fasten me to the Cross? Someone has. For as in Christ all died, but in Him will all be made alive. There it is. I can reckon myself dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God. That’s a mindset that begins in my head, then captures my heart, and finally sets my feet a dancing with delight. I find that dying to self is not such a dreadful idea after all, for such a death releases me into the power and pleasure of His daily presence and delivers me from me. So what keeps us from knowing and experiencing God in a more meaningful way? Whatever it is, it’s not worth a wasted life.

Jill Briscoe is minister at large at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

Copyright 2012 The General Council of the Assemblies of God

The Network for Women in Ministry, c/o Enrichment Journal Office
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