Mel Gibson, in an interview with Peggy Noonan, explained with tremendous insight how doing it on our own does not work. He described how what he called his “spiritual cancer”, led him to grow deeper with God. 

He told her about, “…a time when I was really searching, asking all those Hamlet questions: What's on the other side? Why am I here?… I might look like I'm living the high life, making movies and jetting round the world. But true happiness resides within. I was spiritually bankrupt, and when that happens it's like a spiritual cancer afflicts you. It starts to eat its way through and if you don't do something, it's going to take you. So I simply had to draw a line in the sand."

Mel Gibson’s 12-year pilgrimage led him to understand what Christ did on the cross for him. Gibson said, “… the purpose of the sacrifice was to expiate the transgressions of mankind. These are the testimonies from the gospels and they speak of love. They speak of ransom and a complete forgetting of self for the sake of all others, which is the height of heroism. He became the whipping boy so we have a chance—because we can't make it on our own.”  

This was Moses' trouble. He made a willfull decision to kill and hide his crime. Reading Exodus, we can observe how Moses moves out of willfulness to be called the most humble man, as he led the Jewish slaves out of Egypt toward the promised land. He learned to submit to God, give up his own agenda, and serve God and others. In Exodus, we can see that process in Moses’ life. 

Jesus' on Sermon on the Mount said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the rich in spirit.” The Pharisees were “together,” they believed in God and led morally ethical lives by making themselves “good enough for God”—striving to be rich in spirit, but Jesus said that you will not grow deeper with God if you follow that path. (In fact, we can see that a path of religious willfulness can be lethal.) 

Blessed are those, like Mel Gibson, who realize that they have spiritual cancer, and can move out of self sufficiency into leaning upon and acknowledging God. How to move out of that kind of self sufficiency, into leaning upon God? Pray More. In praying you are acknowledging “I depend upon you, Lord God." Ask God for power to overcome temptation.

The poor in spirit can learn to yield, learn to try things other ways, to submit to God. Not in compromise to evil, going with the crowd. Moses learned to move out of willfulness. After the murder, Pharoh discovered Moses’ killing, and Moses had to leave the palace, flee Egypt, and for 40 years, he had to work and live in the desert herding sheep. Exodus 3 shows how, while herding sheep, Moses has an encounter with God. His response to that encounter can teach us how to grow a deep relationship with God. Just as Moses did, we can: 

1. Hear his call
2. Come face to face with God
3. Follow His lead/Respond by trusting
4. Serve others
5. Be willing to give God our total attention
6. Have a reverent sense of God’s nearness

How can we hear God? How do we give Christ our total attention? Moses allowed his spiritual curiosity to drive him to an encounter with God. Other ways we can find God: 

1. Nature (By observing the beauty and the magnificence of the world’s order and design, we worship the mind of the Creator. Psalm 19 begins, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”)

2. Other people (Allow God to speak to us through authentic, genuine people.)

3. The Word (Read God's love letter to you--the scriptures--and ask how you can apply His Word to your life.)

4. Our pain (Pain strips us of the mirage of our own might, and shows us that we depend upon God.)

5. By keeping the eternal perspective. (God is an eternal God.)

Listen to how he reveals himself.

Summary submitted by Ellie Miller