We Had Heard

 

“As we have heard, so have we seen.”

—Psalm 48:8

I had heard about and seen pictures of Pikes Peak in Colorado for many years. In fact, I showed pictures to classes as I taught “America the Beautiful” written by Katherine Lee Bates from the top of that mountain. But, I had never seen it for myself. Then one summer my husband and I traveled to Colorado Springs and drove up the mountains to the Peak. I experienced something much broader and bigger than I imagined.

The winding, treacherous road, the clear air above the timber-line, the steep climbs, the breathtaking views from the summit, all gave me a much more vivid view of this great mountain.

In Scripture, we find several examples of persons experiencing the wonders of God for themselves that they may have only heard about before. In Psalm 48, the people recount the deliverances of the Lord in their past history. They exclaimed together:

“We had heard about God’s mighty acts. We heard the stories from childhood, but now, in our own time, we have actually seen them for ourselves.”

In the book of Job, we read the story of God’s servant whose life God allowed Satan to devastate. Job suffered great torture and never knew the reason. Yet, he didn’t give up on God. At the very end of his story in Job 42:5, Job confessed to God:

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

Job’s experience far outweighed the stories about God.

In 1 John 1:1, the Apostle describes what he and others had experienced of God:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

Here again, the early church gave great significance to the experience of seeing and knowing Christ.

Paul recognized the importance of a personal knowledge of God. In Philippians 3:10, he yearned:

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Do we want to know Christ in this way, by experience? God invites us to come near, to know Him, to experience the way of life He offers, and to no longer live only on the encounters of others.