Encountering God
Part 3
Some of us are lucky and we have a religious upbringing. This means that we are introduced to ideas about God and to the normality of believing him before we have met him for ourselves. As we are children, we just go along with what our parents say. They – and all the others worshipping – seem to believe in God; they are talking about him as though he exists, in as natural a way as talking about anyone else who exists. And, more than this, they are praying to him, worshipping him, and expressing love as though they are deeply grateful for what this person called, “God” has done for them. Then, at some point it all becomes real for you. This might happen gradually: the reality of God sort of creeps up on you. Perhaps like a mist rolling in from the sea, you suddenly discover that you are enveloped, and what seemed far away, or something that you just knew about, you now know for yourself, because you are experiencing the presence of God – the presence of God which you’ve heard about for so long; had seen no reason to object to by rejecting your religious upbringing, but had not known for yourself – and now you do. Others with a religious upbringing can point to a moment of conversion: “It was about 7.30pm on 3rd March; I was just thinking quietly when, wham! all of a sudden God was there in the room with me. I was overwhelmed and fell to my knees”.
Both these avenues for meeting God can happen to people without a religious upbringing. I think it’s just easier if you have had a religious upbringing because you are giving yourself opportunities in your life to encounter God. You are making time and space when God might speak to you, and you have equipped yourself with the ideas and images that would make talking about God easier, and easier to comprehend what you are experiencing. Many people today do not give God much of a chance to get a word in with them – but he still manages quite often. When he does, it may well strike you as a revelation out of the blue – and indeed it may be, but perhaps also, it will be, as we were thinking above, a slow unfolding of a dance where we hadn’t heard the music start, but unwittingly we had taken the first steps towards a hovering truth, still barely at the corner of our eyes, until it stands right before us, and, suddenly shifting our focus from far off to near at hand, we discover that we have been staring at the one we love all along, but now we can see him.
Spiritual Devotion 