Transformational Knowledge

When wisdom enters into your heart and knowledge itself becomes pleasant to your very soul, thinking ability itself will keep guard over you, discernment itself will safeguard you, - Proverbs 2:10, 11







"Self knowledge that is pursued apart from knowing our identity in relationship to God easily leads to self inflation."

Benner says in "The Gift of Knowing Yourself" that self knowledge can lead to an arrogance when knowledge is valued more than love and if we do not spend as much time knowing God as we know ourselves it will lead to a "self fixation" that is not healthily and not honoring to God.

He also says that having great volumes of knowledge of God without the knowledge of self is just as bad.

Here is an example I have used many times to illustrate this point.


A person is an expert in swimming.

They lead seminars on proper swimming techniques.

They write articles on how to swim and the importance of training to be a better swimmer.

They read all the material available on the great swimmers in the past and how they trained and prepared for swim meets

They model the proper techniques and plan programs for swimming improvement


One day they are visiting a friend by the lake watching the sunset on the dock, The dock is uneven and they fall in to the water.

AND DROWN

They did not know how to swim!

This is what Benner is speaking about and what scripture says about faith without action is somewhat an empty faith.

If you are going to be an expert in swimming, you better be able to swim!


Never being able to swim also puts us in a position where we need to rely on God and not live the "false self" we create when we do not want to be vulnerable or want to search the depths of our souls to see the mess that lives inside us.

Never wanting to jump in the pool, prevents us from meeting God as he is the one and only who can take all the junk in our lives and use it for good.

Only God can show us love and the vulnerability we can have before him, our family and our friends since we know GOD LOVES US.

We can posses knowledge about God but if this knowledge is not used for transformational purposes it is like the knowledge of the great swimming coach who dies in the water. It means nothing.

What is that knowledge that transforms?

More to follow...

Lord,

help me be vulnerable before you,

help me feel your love

help me love others as I can only do through you

help me rest in your presence as I labor today on the Adventure in Middle Grove.