Encountering God
Part 2
So, many people wait, wanting to believe, but not quite able to let themselves go – to give themselves to the life of faith, until they know for sure. There is this strange tension between knowledge and faith. People who have met with God are so overwhelmed by the reality and wonder of God that they want to say, “I know that God is real”. However, strictly speaking, they do not “know”; they simply “believe” that God is real. And in our society, knowledge ranks above faith in the hierarchy. Kierkegaard gives a very good reasonable explanation as to why it makes sense to invert that hierarchy, but it is not the natural way for people to think before they have come to faith. And that is exactly the dilemma they find themselves in, because they don’t have faith yet.
Of course, some people seem to be very lucky, and God just comes to meet them! This is so unfair for those who want to meet God, who feel, perhaps, that they are open and trying, and God just doesn’t turn up. On a theological point, I need to point out that much of what I’ve said so far is wrong, in that I am focussing on the need for us to reach out in order to meet God. Actually, the truth is that God always reaches out to us before we reach out to him. This is what we call grace and is the very essence of God. So, what’s going on here?
It’s not that easy to classify, because everyone is different. When people fall in love and look back on how it happened, who can say who made the first move? We may well be able to remember the first moment when that spark leapt into life, but did that happen because of the smile she gave me – was that the first act of our love – or did she smile because of the way I had looked at her – perhaps a look before I even knew myself that I loved her? But with God, he always makes the first move – but it’s not easy to discern exactly what it was or how it happened. As with human relationships, all we know is that we now love each other, so it is with God, we know that we love him, but we can’t quite see far enough back to notice when it happened. We weren’t watching at the time; we didn’t realise that God was drawing him to us with cords of love.
Spiritual Devotion 