Walking in Our Shoes

"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." Philippians 2:6-7

Imagine you have a relationship with another person. It could be a spouse, a co-worker, a family member, business partner, mail carrier, you name it. Now, imagine this person had the ability to know every one of your thoughts, words spoken, behaviors and even knew your future. How much of a relationship could you really have with this person? If they knew every word you would speak, there would be little use of having a conversation with them. If they knew all of your thoughts you would probably feel uncomfortable around them and maybe even feel violated by them. If they knew all your behaviors before you did then you may even start to get annoyed. You may try and take advantage of them knowing your future for your own personal benefit; maybe knowing where you would live, work and play could be of some use, or not. And we haven't touched on if they knew your past. Imagine the secrets they could uncover?  This person would almost be like a god. After all, when it comes to God, He is omnipotent (having unlimited power), omniscient (having unlimited knowledge) and is the Alpha and the Omega (the beginning and the end). When it comes to our relationship with God, how often do we treat it as if God is always operating within the capacities described above? He quickly becomes that person described earlier that knows everything about us. The relationship, if you can call it that, is awkward at best, nonexistent at worst. Our interactions with Him become ones where we are just trying to get things from Him in order to maximize the pleasure and minimize the pain of life because we feel knowing Him on a personal level is impossible. How can a God who has unlimited power, unlimited knowledge and knows everything from beginning to end be able to understand me, much less I understand Him? He is also described as a God who lives in unapproachable light according to 1 Timothy 6:16. The Christian life is often described as a "relationship instead of a religion." If we truly believe this, how can we have a relationship with an all-powerful God who lives in unapproachable light? By definition, if He moves towards us, we have to back away. And we can't move towards Him because of the light! But, one thing we forget is that God is a living God.  Just because He has all this ability does not mean that He always uses it; especially when He is trying to have a relationship with us.

In Genesis 2:19, it says, "Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." God brought the animals He created to Adam "to see" what he would name them. God, in an effort to include Adam in the Creation process and have a relationship with him, chose not to use His omniscient powers when it came to naming the animals. I am confident He could have figured it out or even have given Adam the names to use, but He didn't. This allowed Him to get to know Adam on a personal level through a shared experience. Later on, in Genesis, God is speaking with Abraham and says, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know (Genesis 18:20-21).” The text says God was going to Sodom and Gomorrah "and see" if their sin was as great as He had heard. It also says, "If not, I will know." Here again, we see a moment where God apparently chose not to know everything and was traveling to investigate when He stopped and spent some time with Abraham. He went on to share His plans with Abraham. These are only two examples where God, in order to cultivate a relationship with the people of His creation, chose not to exercise all His power so as to be able to present Himself to them. The ultimate example of God doing this is found in the Person of Jesus Christ. The scripture describes God coming to earth as Jesus as Him becoming "nothing." To become a man, God became nothing. We are nothing in comparison to God. How humbling is that? But, it shows the depths of God's love for us to do what He did. He came out of the unapproachable light and became one of us. In doing so, there were times when He lived solely as a man and didn't exercise all the powers available to Him as God. He discovered what it was like to live, love, experience joy, sadness, and pain. If He didn't do this, how could the scriptures encourage us by saying, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin (Hebrews 4:15)"? In order to have a relationship with us, God became one of us. He experienced what it was like not to have unlimited power, knowledge or to know the beginning and the end. It has been said, "You can't understand someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes." Well, God, in Christ, did more than walk a mile in our shoes, He walked a lifetime in them. Now, because of Him doing that, God can have a relationship with us and us with Him, through faith in Jesus Christ.