I came up with this question in the shower today (oh how I love the ambience of falling water against the bathtub).
I am a researcher. I research nanoparticles, neuroscience, cancer, Celiac disease etc. I read papers and test theories. Everything turns out to be very methodical and evidence based.
I realize I also research people, more like an observer with a (lab) notebook recording things about people. I am always watching and listening to people, secretly hoping that at some point I will be able to help them in some way in making their way through life. (It’s prideful I know, as if I can do anything). Like in my research, I am an extensive planner but not a good doer. You can see this in my leadership style and how I approach fellowship. Almost all of my interactions with people are meticulously planned. I am not good at just “going with the flow,” unless you are stranger whom I feel no obligation to build a long-term relationship with. It also turns out that those people are the ones I end up having the best initial interactions with, without expectations and full of unadulterated laughter. That is something I have learned over the years, to let go my planning and researching, and just take initiative and let the situation spontaneously unfold. I’ve seen more fruit that way. Many of the best scientific discoveries have also been made that way.
Don’t we all tend to research people as well? We look for people with traits we like, whom we can “pursue a research direction” with. We objectify people when we focus on their traits and not their hearts. We care about their looks, whether they are good at basketball, can play guitar, or how well sing, which medical school they are attending, or even how well they teach. We judge people by their pasts. We judge people’s worth by what they can do, especially what they can do for us, whether it be resources, attention, or just happiness. We hold people to a worldly standard, not realizing that underneath it all is a person so wholly broken and depraved that it is only though the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ that they are redeemed. In all of this, if we don’t look at people through heaven’s eyes, we miss the heart that God cups dearly in His hands. Who are we to question the people God leads into our lives?
Sometimes I realize I also research God, objectify Him in a way. I read theology books and Christian-based articles. I collect quotes from famous theologians and evangelists. I compile verses from the Bible into themes, and I ask many “hows and whys” about the things I see in the Bible and in the modern Christian sphere. I approach God with theology and biblical reason, but forget to pray and ask for intimacy and joy.
Prayer, perhaps more than anything else, is a true test of Christian’s devotion and intimacy with God. Its presence in Christian’s life says it all. Its absence is the evidence of merely theoretical framework of faith. - James M. Houston on C.S. Lewis’ prayer life
But God is more than that. God intends us to have a intimate relationship with Him. We cannot fathom the entirety of God, no matter how much we try. But we don’t need to. One day we will stand in front of Him, all of His glory revealed to us and we will fall down before Him in Love, but today we just need to trust and obey. “Follow me.”
I am a researcher. I research nanoparticles, neuroscience, cancer, Celiac disease etc. I read papers and test theories. Everything turns out to be very methodical and evidence based.
I realize I also research people, more like an observer with a (lab) notebook recording things about people. I am always watching and listening to people, secretly hoping that at some point I will be able to help them in some way in making their way through life. (It’s prideful I know, as if I can do anything). Like in my research, I am an extensive planner but not a good doer. You can see this in my leadership style and how I approach fellowship. Almost all of my interactions with people are meticulously planned. I am not good at just “going with the flow,” unless you are stranger whom I feel no obligation to build a long-term relationship with. It also turns out that those people are the ones I end up having the best initial interactions with, without expectations and full of unadulterated laughter. That is something I have learned over the years, to let go my planning and researching, and just take initiative and let the situation spontaneously unfold. I’ve seen more fruit that way. Many of the best scientific discoveries have also been made that way.
Don’t we all tend to research people as well? We look for people with traits we like, whom we can “pursue a research direction” with. We objectify people when we focus on their traits and not their hearts. We care about their looks, whether they are good at basketball, can play guitar, or how well sing, which medical school they are attending, or even how well they teach. We judge people by their pasts. We judge people’s worth by what they can do, especially what they can do for us, whether it be resources, attention, or just happiness. We hold people to a worldly standard, not realizing that underneath it all is a person so wholly broken and depraved that it is only though the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ that they are redeemed. In all of this, if we don’t look at people through heaven’s eyes, we miss the heart that God cups dearly in His hands. Who are we to question the people God leads into our lives?
Sometimes I realize I also research God, objectify Him in a way. I read theology books and Christian-based articles. I collect quotes from famous theologians and evangelists. I compile verses from the Bible into themes, and I ask many “hows and whys” about the things I see in the Bible and in the modern Christian sphere. I approach God with theology and biblical reason, but forget to pray and ask for intimacy and joy.
Prayer, perhaps more than anything else, is a true test of Christian’s devotion and intimacy with God. Its presence in Christian’s life says it all. Its absence is the evidence of merely theoretical framework of faith. - James M. Houston on C.S. Lewis’ prayer life
But God is more than that. God intends us to have a intimate relationship with Him. We cannot fathom the entirety of God, no matter how much we try. But we don’t need to. One day we will stand in front of Him, all of His glory revealed to us and we will fall down before Him in Love, but today we just need to trust and obey. “Follow me.”
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