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Encounter Over Insight

Writer's picture: Dan HeavenorDan Heavenor
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

When I was in preaching class in seminary, I heard the admonition to find the one point of the passage and preach that. I understand the reasons for this. One can create a lot of noise from secondary issues and miss the plain meaning the author of the text is trying to get across.

 

That said, when we enter into stories from the Gospels prayerfully, sometimes it is the less than obvious details that the Spirit uses to speak a word to our hearts. This happens in our lives all the time. You glimpse something out of the corner of your eye and it draws your attention away from the main action in front of you. This detail turns out to be something significant and worth paying attention to.

 

Hearing for Ourselves 


I had one such experience with the story of the woman at the well in John 4. (I tell this story in the book). Most sermons I have heard on this passage concentrate on the dialogue between Jesus and the woman – rightly so.

Francesco Trevisani circa 1700

But an interesting thing happened for me as I slowed down and “watched” the whole scene play out in prayer. After the conversation with Jesus, the woman returns to her town and tells people about her experience with Jesus. Verse 39 says, “Many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”[1] But that is not the end of the story. John goes on to tell us that the people “came to him,” meeting Jesus themselves and listening to his teaching.  Verse 42 sums it up beautifully. The people say to the woman evangelist,

 

“We no longer believe just because of what you said: now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:42)

 

They moved from hearing about Jesus to encountering Jesus.

 

The Primacy of Encounter

 

I heard Trevor Hudson, the South African pastor and author, tell a similar story recently from his own life. He was on retreat and one day made his way to the library of the retreat center. There he found a commentary on the passage he was praying with and discovered all kinds of wonderful information.

Image by Pexels on Pixabay

As he was sharing these with his spiritual director the next day, perhaps thinking he would receive some level of affirmation for his keen insights, he noticed his listening friend was rather bored. Eventually the man interrupted and said, “Trevor, insight is the consolation prize. The first prize is encounter.”

 

All the information in the world pales in comparison to the encounter with Jesus. We know this yet can find it difficult to remain in that open and vulnerable place, hoping that Jesus will come and meet with us. The truth is, gathering insights, stacking them one upon the other, and munching away on them is manageable. I can control this. I can keep on reading, keeping my mind occupied, gathering up the dopamine hits of new and fresh knowledge, thinking that this will provide what my heart deeply longs for. (I know this addiction well!)

 

But waiting for encounter . . . this is something else entirely. I am much more vulnerable when I wait. I cannot control what will happen, or if anything will “happen” at all. New and interesting insights, at least, provide some level of “happening” within me. I can then leave my prayer satisfied that it was somehow worth it. (We can equally be addicted to experience, feeling something that we interpret as God, and then spend our time chasing that feeling, one experience after another, training ourselves inadvertently to think that God is only present when we are feeling something. There are many pitfalls in all of this).

 

The Vulnerability of Waiting

 

I heard someone on a podcast say recently, “We are addicted to control.” How true this is. How true it is of me as I look at the way I live my life and what causes me anxiety. Will I have enough money? Will I live a meaningful life? Will I be looked after in my old age? All these types of anxious thoughts lead us, lead me, to try to control my circumstances, to shore up my life so I can survive, to hedge my bets against disaster.

 

Photo by Danny Lines on Unsplash

It even manifests in how I pray. I use lots of words, journal many pages, thinking that if I just keep my mind occupied with my ideas and insights and questions, I will not have to face the possibility of a deafening silence and the uncomfortable questions that arise – “You think someone is listening to you? You think there is someone out there who cares about you and will respond to you? You are a fool.” I wonder if you ever hear such a voice?

 

It can be very difficult to simply wait on God. This is not the only posture we take in our lives with God. There are many times when we pursue God intensely, actively seeking God's presence and activity in our lives. Scripture encourages this, but the call to wait on God can be found throughout the Bible.


As a child growing up in church, I was not really taught to wait on God. I took on the notion that getting close to God was primarily, if not exclusively, found in learning more. So many discipleship programs in my experience were based in some form of information accumulation. I get the impulse. We can provide that. We can put programs together. We can offer lots of good stuff to people. It is much more difficult to simply create space for people to encounter God.[2] 

 

I wonder what this might look like in your life?

How do you experience the struggle to wait for encounter?

How do you fill these spaces with useful insights?

 

Here is my offering. Take a minute or two and name what has been happening in you as you’ve been reading this. Turn that into a prayer.

 

Thanks for reading. Until next Thursday.

 

 

 


[1] It is this fact, that people listened to her and believed her, that puts into question the often-assumed characterization of this woman as a prostitute or “sinful” in some other way. If she was that, no one would be listening to her.

[2] Please don’t misunderstand. I am all for learning more but let’s realize learning more is the consolation prize.

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