The God I Think I Know

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.” 2 Peter 1:3

In residency, they talked a lot about this progression of learning, from unconscious incompetence (you don’t know what you don’t know), to conscious incompetence (you know what you don’t know), to conscious competence (you know what you know), to unconscious competence (you don’t know what you know; ie, you have learned the skill so well that you don’t have to think while doing it). It’s a helpful model for teaching. For example, it helps you understand why students aren’t madly scribbling down something you feel is really important—they probably don’t know yet how valuable it is. It reminds you that you may have to parse apart something you do so easily you don’t think about it, for the sake of teaching the skill to other people.

I’ve been thinking about learning, about God. Lately I’ve been struggling with the simple fact that I can know a lot about how to live, but I often can’t live it out. I know I ought to not fall into the same bad habits of complaining, or thinking selfishly, or letting a grumpy mood affect the whole family, but I can’t stop it. Or sometimes, if I try hard, I can stop it outwardly, but inwardly I’m still griping the whole time. It’s like I’m cycling around in the stage of conscious incompetence. At least I know what I ought to be doing, and that counts for something, but knowing what is wise and actually living wisely can be worlds apart.

In the end, we all come to this. I think for long periods of time I’m able to fool myself into thinking I’m doing pretty well on my own, that analyzing and reading and discussing it all is enough. But it is when I realize it’s not enough that I run into the fakeness of my concept of God. This God is the God that I think I know. That I gather from occasional, cerebral glimpses of the Bible. That I hear about second-hand from good sermons and books. That I appeal to in bursts of self-centered pleas. That I forget about for most of my day.

All along, I’m not sure I ever really knew and sought the real God, God for himself. I got good at operating in my own mind and will; how good did I get at listening to him, abiding in him, understanding him, and thus appropriating his real power in my life? Because my own mind and will can only take me so far. It might carry me through the third tantrum, but not the fourth. It might carry me through one sleepless night, but not two. And it can be that one bit of traffic, that one critical comment, that one grumpy day, that reveals what I really don’t know about God. His power is not something dispensed as from a vending machine, not a series of magical words muttered like a spell. It is an outworking in my life that is a result of my relationship with a real God I am getting to know.

It’s like the difference between my idealized version of Dave when I first met him, and the real Dave that I’ve gotten to know over the years. Or like the difference between my idealized vision of what having children would be like, and the real little people I’m living with. The real versions are sometimes shocking, often surprising, but altogether better, if only because they are real, and change and challenge me, not just fit into my concept of what I need or want. The suffering of marriage and certainly parenthood is more than I could have guessed, but the joys are greater too. And that must be so much more true of God, who is in fact perfect, and holy, and merciful, and loving, and faithful, in ways and depths which I cannot grasp in my puny, idealized, second-hand version of him. That fake version may do for a while, but it won’t really change me in the end.