I Want to Know You

Conclave was a great conference this past weekend. God was present with all of us that attended the conference, and He taught me many great things. The ideas presented are great applications for ministry. I will not get into some of the specifics of what we learned, but I do want to talk about a song that we sang during the worship services this weekend. Many of us know the song "I Want to Know You." You have probably sung it many times in some worship service. But I wonder how many times you have thought about the meaning of the song. I know we are all guilty of singing a worship song without thinking about it. And many times we may try to focus in on the lyrics. But there are some songs that I know that I have not thought about before, and this is one of them. Here are the lyrics to the chorus:

I want to know You
I want to hear Your voice
I want to know You more

I want to touch You
I want to see Your face
I want to know You more

Todd Agnew was the worship leader this weekend. And during our first session he began breaking this song apart to give us a look at the meaning behind the words. So lets start with "I want to hear Your voice." Do you really want to hear His voice? We would hope that we would say yes, but think about the consequences. What if you really heard His voice? What if He spoke powerfully to you and told you specifically what He wanted you to do. I think you would feel compelled to obey. I know I would. But that would be an extremely dramatic experience. Are we at the point in our lives where we would be willing to do what He said without question and without pause? That, I do not know.

Then Todd spoke on "I want to see Your face." Have you ever read about the burning bush? Moses was not allowed to see God's face, even though he asked if he could. God only allowed him to see His back. And God told Moses that by seeing His face, he would die. So when we sing this line, you are basically asking for death. God has never allowed a human to see His face. What a powerful image this line provides. But if we truly desired to see His face, that would be a mark of a dedicated life to God.

Finally, Todd looked at "I want to touch You." Again, return to the Old Testament. When David was helping return the Ark of the Covenant, a man reached out to catch the Ark, which was about to fall to the ground. God struck him dead immediately. In the New Testament, a woman reached out to touch Jesus for healing. She was only able to grab His clothes, and she was healed immediately. But think about it, she touched something that was touching Him. She did not even touch His skin. When we say that we want to touch Him, think about the consequences.

Todd joked around saying that 2 of these 6 lines are actually asking God to kill us. But I thought about it in a different way. Romans 12:1-2 talks about our lives being living sacrifices. Well how can we live and be a sacrifice at the same time? I think the answer has to do with the flesh and the spirit. We die to ourselves, our flesh. And if you think of this song in those terms, it takes on a different, but powerful meaning. Maybe the "asking for death" mentioned in this song could refer to dying to our flesh so that our spirit would be evident in our lives. The bottom line is that we should be that committed to Christ. No matter what this song actually means, or what it means to you, I think that it calls for a life of commitment. We must be committed to God. Our lives cannot just be words, thoughts, or ideas. There must be a lifestyle that backs up our beliefs.

Matt