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Do We Understand? ...

Thursday, March 14, 2019. As a human race, or as indivicuals, how far is our understanding? “Wait a moment”, you might say. “What are you talking about?” You might say: “I have problems enough in my job, very strange rules, a salary which does not fully pay what the kids need and relatives which show difficult behaviour. We can talk about understanding of this situation - and a good path through the next days!”

At the same time, of course, a lot of us are working on a better understanding of our world. There are engineers working on “how to make this happen”, for example electric cars. There are scientists working on the basic understanding of phenomena. They search ways to understand, to describe, to simulate and to predict!

Hear, O heavens …

There is another layer of understanding. It is the understanding of goals, of desire, of ethics, of righeousness. It is the broader understanding of the overall situation of men and women. The prophet Isaiah starts his famous book with the following words:

2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” (from Isaiah 1)

This is about the people of Israel knowing God, their father. God has brought them up! He is the one who told Abraham to go into the land of Kanaan. He promised him to be with him and his family. And all the people of Israel came out of it. God's chosen people. But they forgot this origin, and they forgot who God is!

Give ear, O earth …

What do we know about our origin? We search for the evolution of mankind, for the evolution of life, for human rights, for progress and goals. We have forgotten our origin as well. Again you might say: “There is no God!” or “Religion has caused a lot of evil.” I will diagree with the first sentence, since there is a God, the father of all what is. And he has created a free people, to make their own choices.

But what is causing evil? Where does evil come from? Is evil somewhere out there? Or is it in us, in the middle of our hearts and souls? Do you understand evil? Do you understand what good is and what it means? Do I understand?

God wants us to get to know him. He is good, that is the message of the bible. And indeed, we find so many good things here in this book, that the conclusion about a good God seems to be obvious, even if there are questions open which are difficult to answer.

The biblical prophets and the evangelists and all the apostles talk about the invitation to get to know God through Christ Jesus. In him, the fullness of God became human, and lived among us. Here, we find deeper understanding, though the wisdom of God is higher than our mind, and deeper than our soul. Understanding cannot be reached in full. But we can get much insight into this world and its creator when we progress on our path with Jesus, the Lord. (Roland Potthast) ... further texts