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 3^rd 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.

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.

As it seemed to work OK last week publishing a long article in 5 daily posts, I thought I’d do the same this week – but even then, the chunks are pretty long! I thought I’d post a daily prayer alongside each one – at least they’re shorter!

Encountering God

Part 1

Dearest Lord, how may I know you? You who are so beyond me, so unlike me? Yet in your gracious love you draw close to me and make yourself known. I call on you now please to draw very close to me, into my inmost heart and mind that I may know you and love you. Amen

Meeting God is a peculiar thing. Lots of people say they have met him, and recommend that you would be glad if you met him too. And a lot of people are very open to this suggestion. They would love to believe in God, and all it needs is a bit of incontrovertible proof. Just a tiny bit – that’s all it would need. And that’s precisely what there isn’t any of. If only discovering God for yourself was like discovering Mt Everest for yourself. People could tell us about the mountain; we’d realise that we’d like to climb it – and then we start totting up the difficulties. It’s a long way away; it’s very difficult to climb; you need to get yourself very fit and join up with an expedition that requires a lot of time and money and commitment. But that’s all OK: you want to climb Everest and you can get there, and you climb it, and you think: “Wow, here I am. They told me Everest exists and that it’s magnificent, and that when I get to the top it will be a supremely fulfilling experience – and they were right”. Job done!

In this analogy, we see that some people might decide it wasn’t worth the effort – they have enough good things in their life, and they can manage without seeing Everest for themselves. Some might go but fail in their first couple attempts at climbing it and conclude they’re not up to it – it’s disappointing, but, again, life has other joys and so, ultimately, it’s no great loss. But knowing the reality of God, and experiencing it for yourself, are not like this. This is why I began with a prayer. Encountering God begins with us reaching out before we know for sure that he is real. This is risky. What if we reach out our hand to God and nothing happens? We are going to feel so stupid! Of course, this means that meeting with God is an act of faith – we have to step out to meet him before we are sure that he is really there. Damn! If only we could have some objective proof that he is real, then many of us would be prepared to put in immense effort to find him. But we don’t want to waste our life on a wild goose chase. There is not the fear of being rebuffed, which sometimes holds us back from reaching out to another person to say we like them, because everyone who does meet God says that he welcomes them. However, people understand that living your life with God is a big thing: he will want changes in your life. As he is the be all and end all, we really ought to be transforming our lives so that everything is in tune with him. We really don’t want to go to all that trouble if it’s not really true.

Why on earth do I say God loves me?

Part 5

And, again, that is not how God’s love is experienced. His love speaks with an authentic voice. If I was tricking myself, I would be more deviously self-serving and induce the voice to tell me exactly what I want to hear. Instead, the voice of God definitely has a mind of its own, and tells me the truth about myself in no uncertain terms. I don’t think I am fooling myself. I know what my voice sounds like in my head when I’m trying to talk myself around on some matter, and this voice simply sounds like a different voice to my own. God is speaking back to us in a genuine conversation – always full of love, but sometimes definitely saying things we’d rather not hear.

This voice of God has become the most precious thing in my life. It acts exactly like I would expect God to act in the traditional understanding of God. I cannot see any reason why we should not call this God – and love him, and act on what he says accordingly.

Why on earth do I say God loves me?

Part 4

In my claim that God loves me, I am trying to be true to my experience. If I am wrong, and it is me all along, then I – and countless millions like me – have discovered an ability that is perhaps the most awesome human creation ever. Surely everyone should wish to learn the methods by which they can induce in themselves overwhelming experiences of the utmost love. However, if I am right, that there is a personal, active God, who loves me – and countless millions of others, it seems extremely likely that he loves you too. Surely everyone should wish to open themselves to meeting this person we call God. My experience is that I – no-one special, in fact someone whom I don’t regard very highly, so it’s not as though God is only selecting the best of us to bestow his love on – am the beneficiary of the utmost love. It never falters. I cannot control it to indulge myself whenever I want to, but every time God bestows his love on me it is the same indescribably wonderful experience. It does not depend on my worthiness. In fact, this God of love seems to be particularly loving at just those moments when I feel I’ve messed up and definitely don’t deserve to be loved. Again, you may want to do a clever bit of psychology here and say, “Aha, that’s the secret: it’s a mental defence mechanism that jumps into play to pick yourself up when you’re feeling down”. It’s a possibility, but, again, I simply say, if it’s a trick, isn’t it a trick that everyone should want to have up their sleeve?