Endings, beginnings, ongoings: “Amen”, “Come with me”, “Let’s go Lord”
Part 4b (I feel part 4 is too long, so I’ve split it into two): A peculiar problem
To return to God – or rather to God and me – and to God and you – what I want to say is this.
God is a person. This is essential, for the essence of God is a relationship with him. God just doesn’t work if you try to reduce God to an idea or a value or a principle. That sense of dynamic, ongoing relationship is a crucial dimension of who God is. So, God is a person, and as such he is the means by which the everyday events of our lives are transformed into the ineffably precious spiritual experiences that make a life of faith in God to be life in all its fullness. As we develop and live out our relationship with him, we enter into a depth of life which is unreachable without him. I never wish to belittle the lives of people who never find faith. Life is precious – I might see this as emerging out of God being the creator, but even for those who completely reject this idea, the depth of life is wonderful beyond measure. You may think: “In what way is life with God any better then? And how can you know?”. I believe it is clear that a life shared with God must have another dimension that the secular-minded person cannot have. Perhaps that person might argue that this additional dimension does not matter, and a human being can enter into complete fullness of life without God. Of course, strictly speaking, this is something we can never know because we can only know what it feels like within our own heart and mind. However, I don’t think our necessary agnosticism on this point undermines what I’m saying. I believe I’m doing my best to show respect for all people and not belittle secular people as somehow missing out on the wonder of life – just because my religious experiences are so very fulfilling to me. However, I think we have good grounds for thinking that it’s only with God that we reach fullness of life. This is because God is the ultimate expression of all goodness. And because the essence of God is sharing a relationship with him. So, sharing our lives with him – in this incredibly rich, layered existence that we have been thinking about – must open up to us experiences that are not open to secularists, even though they will have access to many of the good and wonderful experiences that come to us through our humanity. So we are not quibbling: “Well you’ve never known the pleasure of golf”. “Well that’s nothing, you’ve never known the joy of birdwatching”. When we consider our relationship with God we are dealing with entirely different categories of experience precisely because of the nature of God, which is so ineffably good, immensely beyond our understanding – but not beyond our ability to experience him.
God turns our ordinary, everyday lives into extraordinary spiritual treasure. He has the ability to do this even with people whose lives may seem very humble and dull, and even those who suffer greatly. It is probable that, if you have a deep, devoted faith in God, that he particularly works this transforming effect in the lives of those who have terrible burdens to bear. As someone “who has been very lucky” in the circumstances of my life, I do not have experience of this myself, but my faith teaches me that God’s transforming ability is most effective in those who are hardest pressed. In my own very fortunate life, I can testify to how an otherwise “nothing in particular to report here” sort of life has been filled with the grace of God, showing itself in so many ways, and issuing in God’s gifts of joy, peace and love to me. It is God’s presence and my relationship with him that is so utterly precious – much more than any particular event or achievement. It is simply being able to know him that counts for more than anything else, and everything else put together. Clearly, it is impossible to have this experience of God except by knowing God. Is there an alternative substitute as precious as knowing God? I believe that there are a number of sources of preciousness that fill us to overflowing and in this sense are “infinite” because they have surpassed our ability to measure them. So, I believe it is possible for people to find this fullness of life without God. However, as in so many ways, God is in a unique category of his own and therefore – because of the nature of God and the nature of our relationship with him – the particular fullness of life that God imparts cannot be known except by knowing God.
So, me and God, we are old friends. Of course, it is completely wrong of me to speak of God in this casual, disrespectful way – except that God has said, it’s OK. In his grace he has put to one side the wonder of his majesty precisely so that he and I can sit, side by side. In the intimacy of his love, in that shared life of inner conversation and consolation and inspiration and exhilaration he and I have come to an understanding with one another. Again, ridiculous language: God has known all about me – and loved me utterly – since before I was, while God remains a wonderful mystery to me, but I am striving to express that ongoing living out of our relationship, by which God, in his fullness, has taken account of my emptiness and “accommodated me” so that I can dwell in communion with him and know the fullness of his love. Without in any way contradicting the fullness of God’s presence and his love (I said it was a mystery), God, seeing my emptiness, has emptied something of himself, to make space for me by his side. Yes me, who really am so shallow, have been gifted the full depth of the love of God – just because this is what God is like. I say “Amen”. He says, “Come with me”. I say, “Let’s go Lord”, but, in truth, he says, “Let’s go” at the same time.
Spiritual Devotion 