I was thinking this past Saturday about the difference between remembering, understanding, and knowing.
We can all remember lots of things. We can remember random facts or something that happened to us years ago. We remember where we parked the car (well, other people do. This is not my strong suit.) and we remember birthdays of people close to us.
But we don't understand everything we remember. There's a different level to move from remembering to understanding. For example, I can recall the ingredients for some recipes, but I don't understand the ingredients well enough to know what I would substitute if I was missing one. I remember facts about the dinosaurs, but I don't understand the historical timeline well enough to know when dinosaurs came and went from the earth. On the other hand, I both remember the names of the parts of a car engine and understand how they work.
Knowledge, however, is an even deeper level. To truly know something means you remember the facts, you understand it, and you have intimate knowledge that allows you to teach this to someone else. For example, mechanics have knowledge of a car engine to the extent they can take it apart and put it back to together. I understand it, but don't know it well enough to assemble it.
Where are you in your life of faith? It's one thing to remember certain Bible stories and facts about God. It's another level to understand how these things come together and see the bigger narrative of faith. It's a deeper level to know these things and how our life fits into the grand narrative we see in Scripture, to know that God loves you and longs for you to flourish, to know religious community and know how important it is to find a group of people you can trust to build knowledge of God and one another.
We're called for more than remembering Bible verses. We're called for more -- for knowledge of God, knowledge to the extent that it changes your life as you contemplate the immense love of God for you and the calling God has on your entire life.
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