Encountering God
Part 5
We have to wait. This can be so painful. Some people may be able to say, “Bloody hell! I’ve been waiting all my life and the bastard’s still not turned up”. Let’s say it how it is and be honest with our feelings. God can take it. Can we? What on earth is going on here? Again, I don’t really know. All I can say is: don’t try to force it; don’t give up; don’t despair; don’t think that you have failed, or done something wrong; certainly don’t think that God doesn’t want you, that he’s not interested in you, that he doesn’t care about you, that you’re not good enough. You want to believe in God. Then start believing. Start acting as though God is real in your life. This may seem strange, like a charade, dishonest, wrong. But all believing in God is an act of faith. All you’re doing is extending this to before you encountered God as well as after encountering him. Abandon all expectations of what meeting with God should be like. When it happens – if it happens – and, yes, somehow, we have to put that “if” in the sentence, it might not happen – you will know that it’s happened. But remember, when it happens it could be the dramatic revelation of a conversion experience, or it could be the unnoticed welling up of truth till you surprise yourself with the sudden revelation: “Gosh. I believe!”. Let’s go back to that “if”: this is really important: if the encounter with God is real, then we must allow ourselves the possibility that it might not happen. Meeting with God is not something that we are socially constructing for ourselves; it is meeting a real person. He “might not show up”, but then, when we do meet him, we know that this is a real encounter. In the same way that we cannot force someone to love us – but when they do it is truly wonderful, so we cannot force God to appear at our command – but when he does appear, it is overwhelming, and wonderful beyond measure. Somehow, we have to believe that he does love us – and then try and spot the signs that this is so – remembering that the signs might not be the ones we were expecting.
God is real. It’s quite easy to accept that as a proposition that may well be true, and, personally, I am inclined to believe it. Just as it is easy to weigh up evidence to the contrary and conclude that this is a false proposition. But to know that God is real – to know this for yourself, requires an encounter with the living God. If you have not had this encounter yet, then reach out. Don’t wait for an encounter and only then decide to give your life to loving God. Start loving him now. Act out a life of faith in him. This sounds so strange: “So, it’s only an act; it’s not real”. But the acting out is both: yes, it is just an act because you are starting to live in tune with a truth that you have not yet encountered, but your actions are also deeply real because you are acting on faith. And what is more faithful than to show faith before you truly, actually have faith? One of the ideas about the resurrection of Jesus that I love is, “You will meet him on the way”. The resurrection of Jesus has just been announced, but most of the disciples have not met him yet. They are told to go to Galilee and they will meet him there. They have to set off believing that they will meet him before they have encountered for themselves that he is risen. I think this is a good illustration for the life of faith in God. God must be encountered as a real presence in your life. Reach out and give him a chance. I understand that this is still infuriating for those who really want to meet God and feel that he just is not there. I am simply trying to explore as well as I can what the experience of meeting God is like. I wish you well with your search.
Once we have met God, we will love him. Love him with all our hearts. What we need is to encounter him for ourselves. He is real. He is near at hand. He is calling us. He is reaching out his hand now, as he has been all our lives. Reach out in faith and put your hand in his.
Spiritual Devotion 