Experience Knowing

 [What does it mean to really know something… or someone?]

As I’ve gotten to know the Spanish language over the years, I’ve noticed some of the depth that the English language has lost over time. There are two verbs for “to know” in Spanish. The first, saber, is to know a fact; to know of; or to know how. Conocer draws what we know about knowing deeper. It is to personally know someone, or experience a place in reality. This seemingly minuscule difference is the essence of why I’ve decided to go on my adventure…

I want to know.

I want to know God in the sense that I experience who He is; not who someone told me He was. I want to have the faith that he will bring me through the trials of having little and living outside of what I consider comfort. I want to see countries with my own eyes, and not on a screen that doesn’t provide smell or breeze or noise. I want to live in cultures long enough to begin to understand  beyond memorized facts and superficial knowledge; to taste foods prepared by native hands. I want to have relationships and know people who have never known life as I have known it; people with different ways of looking at the world we live in and different ways to cope with it. I want to know what it feels like to live on minimal possessions; gathering my wealth in the adventure. And ultimately I want to know me. Me as a person who is free in Christ; always looking ahead to what is to come.

There was never a time when I took what someone said and believed it without first seeking it with my own eyes; my own mind; and my own heart. Why do we so often settle for knowing about a thing without allowing ourselves the opportunity of truly knowing it? I discovered a love for Spanish and Hispanic culture by going to Spain to study. I am diving deeper by moving to the Dominican. I treat my spirituality no different. I sought out what God’s word said and uncover daily more of who He is. Seek to know God, not just know about him. Seek to experience him, don’t stop at the stories. Seek a relationship, not a title or a political status or a place in the pew. Are you personal about what your faith? Have you experienced Him enough to make him real to you? Or are you just someone who knows the right verses to say and attends church once a week?

This year will be a year of knowing. Moving from my home and family in North Carolina to the Dominican Republic is, to date, the scariest and most exhilarating thing I have done. I am taking that forward stride into a place where I can know God more; a place where I learn every day from the world around me, and a place where I can seek out what God has purposed for my life. Follow me as I discover the gift of experience… but more than that, follow me as I go out into the reality. Take yourselves from words to life; from screen to vision, and from superficial to relationship. Intimately knowing our God and all of his creation is not a way to experience life; it is the only way to truly experience at all.

You will seek me and you will find me, when you seek me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13