"But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."
-1 Peter 3:15
As you many already know, I normally take inspiration for my blog posts from my experiences in everyday life. Today I was taking a shower and started to think about appreciation. More specifically, I thought about the fact that there are things that some people can appreciate while other people cannot. For example, I have little appreciation for painting. My father really enjoyed going to art museums to admire the paintings and other artwork on display. On the other hand, I found little to no enjoyment whenever my dad took me along with him to these museums.
While in the shower today, I thought about why I couldn't appreciate the same things my dad seemed to appreciate a lot. We were both looking at the same pieces of art, yet only one of us was able to appreciate and enjoy it. I realized that the answer was quite simple: my dad likes to paint. He has been painting for quite a while, whereas I have no interest in painting whatsoever. He was able to understand what made a painting special and what made a painting mundane.
I thought about the experiences I've had in life where some people have been able to appreciate something while others could not. Watching the Super Bowl is one experience that I've noticed there is a clear divide between people who were engaged in the game and those who were not. It was mostly the guys who would be watching the game and cheering for a certain team, while the girls would be off to the side talking with each other. The guys were able to appreciate the game because they understood what was going on. The girls simply saw a game where they didn't understand much of the rules or strategy, so there wasn't much for them to appreciate.
I recently spoke with one of my coworkers that I had become friends with over the course of the past couple months. We went to a sushi place and started talking about different things like work and video games. At one point in the conversation, he had started talking about religion, specifically Christianity. This was intriguing to me, because he had told me before that he was an atheist. I asked him what he thought the main message of Christianity is, to which he replied something along the lines of "Jesus comes down and say 'come believe in Me or you will go to hell'."
I remember when he said that, I thought how different his understanding of Christianity was than my own. To my friend, the main message of the Bible is that Jesus is trying to get people to believe in Him, and Him only. While this isn't necessarily false, it's not the whole picture. I explained to him that yes, Jesus does proclaim to be the only way to eternal life, but this is because we have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Jesus came down to save us for our good out of His love. I tried my best to explain this to my coworker, but it was clear we both had a different view of the subject.
Even among believers, I see a difference of appreciation for God, the Bible, and Christianity as a whole. I notice this sometimes during praise, where some people seem very connected to God through the music, and others just seem disengaged. I also see this in terms of reading the Bible, where some will treasure their time in the Word while others will find it to be a chore.
I think there are three "stages" that people can be in that changes their appreciation: ignorance, knowledge, and experience. Those who are ignorant and not stupid, as the term "ignorant" tends to imply, they just don't know much about something. For example, I can't appreciate paintings very much because I am ignorant about the process. Those who are knowledgeable are able to understand something, but may not have tried it themselves. The guys watching the Super Bowl are more knowledgeable about football than the girls, so they had a greater appreciation for it. Finally, those with experience have the greatest appreciation of all. My coworker had knowledge about God, but he hasn't experienced the transforming power of knowing God as I have in my life.
Many of us can get stuck in the "knowledge" phase in our spiritual walk with God. To be honest, this is where I often find myself. I don't have the same appreciation for the Word of God as those who have experienced it's power in their lives. We can never learn to enjoy our spiritual journey unless we actively seek to experience God in our lives. Simply knowing about Him or His Word is not enough to change our appreciation of Him. I pray that we all ask ourselves "what can I do today to experience God and increase my appreciation of Him?"
-Smart
