So You Would Know...

By Marjorie Kinnee

As our choir sang Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir's, "So You Would Know", the words filled my mind... "Didn't I put food on your table? showed up when the bills were due? When the pain was wracking your body, didn't I send healing down to you?"

Breaking into my consciousness was the realization that we humans are bogged down with here and now. We are bound by what we can feel with our hands, see with our eyes, and hear with our ears. We think in terms of the tangible; houses, cars, loved ones, physical, and material things. And thus we flounder in fetters fashioned by our own frailties.

It seemed to me those first lines aptly picture the restrictions we place on the God of the universe. We limit His approach, His ability to speak to us on any higher level because we are so chained to the earthy.

We're not alone in this. Matthew tells us of a return visit Jesus made to His hometown, Nazareth. Speaking in their synagogue, He astonished them with His teaching. Their response was, "Where is all this coming from? We know His mother, His brothers and His sisters. They live right here with us, so how is it that He's like this?" His Nazarene neighbors were offended in Him. (See Matthew 13:53-57.) The sad conclusion is... "And He did not many might works there because of their unbelief." (Matthew 13:58)

Limiting God on any level amounts to unbelief and such limitations end up tying His hands! We restrict Him to touching us through earth-bound things because we're too dim of eye-sight, too dull of hearing, and too locked in the tangible to perceive the intangible realities He offers so freely. We place the greatest weight on what we see and feel. But in reality, the realm of the Spirit is far more weighty. It's our perception that's awry. The last lines of the chorus introduce the perception He longs for in and from us. "When you were lost in sin and sorrow," (this can only be perceived in one's spirit,) "I died to set you free..." (His response and solution to our spiritual predicament,) So you would know..." (perceive/understand)

He wants so much more than just restricted access. Everything He desires, His very purpose and plan for us is wrapped up in us realizing there is so much more than just the here and now. At the foot of the cross we begin to glimpse the glorious intent He had, (and has,) for us. He wants us to move up and out of the dirt and dust - to a higher plain. The cross not only reveals His  overwhelming love for us, it also is the launch point to a whole new spiritual world of eternal light and life.

Oh yes, "bars of bone" as another songwriter put it, "hold my soul." But there is coming a day, and it's not far away, when those bars will vanish and what was truly important will fill our view for ever and ever. What a pity, what a waste, to fritter away His overtures, His wooing. Even now His Spirit draws us, "Come up hither, My beloved. Forsake earthly things." Can you hear His voice...? "So you would know... So you would know how much... So you would know just how much I love you!"

MJKinnee