Obama and Romney will die, just like the rest of us.

The last traces of fall are slipping away; the leaves have done most of their falling and the orange and yellow glows are greying, preparing our eyes for the white winter.  Okay, enough of the sappy intro.

Lately I've been reading J.I. Packer's Knowing God, and page after page I'm humbled.  Not by Packer, per se, but by the recognition of my own "knowing" of God.  I've long prided myself on knowledge; if you know me, you know this.  I have lots of big, classy looking books; blue and red cloth hardcovers with golden gilt lettering.  Many of these books have tons of incredible information about the world and philosophy and God and language.  My primary interest in all of this is centered around knowing about God.

And that seems noble.

The problem, though, is that key word "about."



As Packer points out, "One can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of him."  It can be compared to a personal relationship with any human being.  I can know all about you.  I can know where you go to school, what you enjoy, the books you read, and many other things about you, having never even met you.  I can know a lot about you without really knowing you at all.

When, in the midst of his last prayer in the presence of his friends, Jesus says this:  "this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3 ESV), he doesn't mean knowing "about" God and Jesus.  Many know all about the Christian God; they make it their job and the central focus of a rigorous academic career.

But they don't know God.

Not in the least.

As the leaves turn grey and brown and fall to the pavement, as the winter is ushered in by the same cold wind and sleet that drove those turning leaves to the ground, I see again the passing away of all things.  Those blue and red books with their golden gilt lettering will rot, too.  Just like the leaves, Obama and Romney will both die, and with them their dreams of change and glory.
The Buddhists have made this a central doctrine, which is, in fact, perhaps the only doctrine that ties all Buddhist schools together.

Everything dies.

Something the Buddhists do not posit, however, is that there is something that doesn't die.  And that is a life with God.  The creator of all that's good, including the beautiful colors of fall, wants to live with us.  And I will tell you that it matters very little who won last night's election when I am living with an eternal God, and when, in fact, he lives in me.

I'm learning to know the God of the Bible all over again.  And it is so good.

What a beautiful life.