“I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.”

Ephesians 1:16-17

Vibrating, Flying Tires

Paul’s priority in prayer was that Christians would come to know God better. Although this may seem impractical, it is more practical than you think.

Several years ago, my wife and I went to a conference in Minneapolis with some close friends. About two or three hours into the nine-hour drive, the van picked up a bad vibration which we thought might be from a flat tire.

Sure enough, the front passenger tire was rapidly going flat. We found the nail, repaired the tire, and moved on, but the vibrations got worse. Since my friend thought it might be a CV joint going out, he called his father-in-law, who agreed. So we pulled over and found a mechanic about 10 miles back in Janesville, Wisconsin.

As we headed there, the vibrations got worse every minute. Then, to our shock and dismay, the front driver’s tire, rim and all, flew by the window! Going about 50 miles an hour, the tire was thrown over 100 yards into a bean field. We discovered the problem was not the CV joint but loose lug nuts on that front tire.

Small or Imaginary Problems

Sometimes as we travel down life’s road and get bad vibrations, we get sidetracked by a smaller problem (a flat tire) or an imaginary problem (a CV joint), but we miss the obvious, real problem—the loose lug nuts in our personal relationship with God.

Lust

Take the problem of sexual lust. If you struggle with pornography or with romantic fantasies and soap operas, you might focus on a smaller, legitimate problem that needs to be changed, like disconnecting the cable or Internet.

You might also get distracted by an imaginary problem. If you are single, you might think you need to get married; if married, you might think you need a different marriage. You might buy the lie that there are physiological reasons making sexual self-control impossible.

But the real problem is your personal relationship with God. You need to know Him! “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Depression and Discouragement

If you are struggling with depression and discouragement, you might think it’s because you are tired and overworked. That may be true, but what if you are still depressed after you get rest? You might start assuming something worse is wrong—that you have a genetic predisposition to depression or that you suffer from repressed memories.

But could the real problem be that your personal knowledge of God is lacking? Maybe you are depressed because you’re focused on everything else—problems, people, trials, yourself—except the living God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God. (Psalm 42:5)

Insecurity and Fear

Perhaps you have a consuming desire for others’ approval; you are insecure and constantly fear man. You may need to cultivate more authentic, transparent relationships.

The temptation is to imagine that you have low self-esteem. (Probably the opposite is true—you have an inflated esteem of self.)

The real problem, however, is that the lug nuts on your esteem of God are loose. You need to know Him if you want to be free from the craving for approval. Only the true, life-giving fear of God can liberate us from the fear of man. “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 29:25).

Church Problems

Let’s apply this on the level of community. If a church is struggling with lack of growth, ineffective outreach, or internal strife, what is the problem? Most churches focus on the small or imaginary problems: more people, bigger budget, better programs, different music, sharper image. Some of these may help in small ways, but the real problem is a loose lug nuts in their knowledge of God.

David Wells insightfully writes,

It is one of the remarkable features of contemporary church life that so many are attempting to heal the church by tinkering with its structures, its services, its public face. This is clear evidence that modernity has successfully palmed off one of its great deceits on us, convincing us that God himself is secondary to organization and image, that the church’s health lies in its flow charts, its convenience, and its offerings rather than in its inner life, its spiritual authenticity, the toughness of its moral intentions, its understanding of what it means to have God’s Word in this world. . . .

The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.^[i]

Man’s Deepest Need

When Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus, he prayed first for a deeper knowledge of God, because this is always our deepest need. All of our sin is really rooted in a defective vision and inadequate acquaintance with God. If we knew Him better, the power of competing idolatries would be broken, and we would no longer be so easily sidetracked by smaller or imaginary problems.

 

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[i] David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994) 30.