{"id":12751,"date":"2024-03-06T00:38:49","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T19:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/06\/where-do-you-experience-god-well-answer-me\/"},"modified":"2024-03-06T00:38:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T19:08:49","slug":"where-do-you-experience-god-well-answer-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/06\/where-do-you-experience-god-well-answer-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Where do you experience God? Well, answer me."},"content":{"rendered":"


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I actually did this. All by myself. Quartered and stacked. Three rows deep. I did this.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I had lunch a while back with two friends visiting the area, home for a few weeks from their normal lives in Kenya.<\/p>\n

In the course of conversation, one of them asked me, \u201cWhere do you experience God?\u201d<\/p>\n

My inner recovering Calvinist quickly surfaces and I think to myself,<\/p>\n

\u201cMind your own business. And another thing, we don\u2019t \u2018experience\u2019 God. We read about him and formulate thoughts about him. When we do experience God, it may be in a harshly worded book review, perhaps a knock-down-drag-out doctrinal debate in a session meeting, or, as in the good old days, some form of physical punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

All partial kidding aside, my own experience in various expressions of conservative Christianity has not set me up to answer easily my friend\u2019s question. The theology of immediate retribution on Chronicles, sure. Got that one covered. But not this one.<\/p>\n

Which is a shame. I actually had trouble saying where I experience God. That bothers me.<\/p>\n

I was taught\u2013implicitly and explicitly\u2013that the experience of God is something that\u2026well\u2026it\u2019s good if you can get it, but don\u2019t go looking for it. After all, experience is subjective and potentially misleading. Best to get your theology in order and leave subjective experience to the Charismatics.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot of about this over the last few years, and my friend\u2019s question pushed me further along:<\/p>\n

Experiencing God is the point.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know some of you may wonder why I even need to write this, but:<\/p>\n

Without the experience of God, what use is all our cogitating? What good does it to to reduce God to having either the right thoughts neatly arranged, or busying ourselves with the \u201cwork of the Gospel\u201d when immediacy with God is not part of the package?<\/p>\n

A life dominated by worry, fear, anger, etc.,\u2013which commonly accompany the life of the mind\u2013is a life where the experience of God is a theory, not a reality.<\/p>\n

So, back to my friend\u2019s intrusive question. I wanted to say\u2013just to get her off my back\u2013\u201cin church\u201d but (1) that\u2019s not true, and (2) she knows I know it\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n

So, I think I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know. Give me a hint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here the part of Pete is being played by an actor. Also, my trim is barn red.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She encouraged me to sense God\u2019s presence by being open to God while doing those things that jazz me. I mentioned that I sometimes get very antsy while writing, and I feel I just\u00a0have<\/em> to go outside and stack firewood or paint trim for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n

She suggested that was a clue about the kind of person I am and how I actually already\u00a0do<\/em> experience God along paths I don\u2019t normally think about. I need to learn to keep my eyes and ears open.<\/p>\n

I was taught from early on to experience God in reading the Bible, prayer, evangelism, and church. Maybe an occasional feed the hungry weekend.<\/p>\n

Or a miracle in your life. Miracles are good.<\/p>\n

My friend, however, was reminding me that God is bigger and more pervasive in his creation than these formulas. Is this too radical to consider\u2013that perhaps God may be present in our lives in all sorts of \u201cunconventional\u201d ways; and what jazzes me may be telling me when those experiences are happening?<\/p>\n

I am a \u201cphysical\u201d person. I used to be an active athlete; I do a lot of work on our house; I still exercise; and I am fidgety\u2013<\/em>boy, am I fidgety. My friend pointed out that I even tend to express myself using \u201cphysical\u201d vocabulary\u2013\u201cno need to jump off a cliff about it\u201d is preferred to \u201cno need to be so concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, as I\u2019m stacking wood or painting trim (or rebuilding rotted trim so I can paint it), I should learn to be mindful of what is going on inside of me those moments and ask God, \u201cWhere are you right here and now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Or maybe better, \u201cHow are you here right now?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

No bright lights of God\u2019s brilliant presence\u2013at least I hope not as I\u2019m 20\u2032 up a ladder\u2013but perhaps deeper and more\u2026soothing, peaceful. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m new at this. Give me a break.<\/p>\n

I am so used to accessing a far-off God through my mind, through words. Rather than me calling the shots, maybe I can cultivate a patient discipline of seeing other, less controllable, ways in which God is already part of my experience.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure I\u2019m doing a rotten job explaining all this, but I\u2019m fine with that. I do wish, though, that I would have been taught some of these things during\u00a0my formative Christian years\u2013especially in seminary.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, it\u2019s not like I can\u2019t learn some new things and keep moving along on the journey.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fine with that, too. And I believe, so is God.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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I actually did this. All by myself. Quartered and stacked. Three rows deep. I did this. I had lunch a while back with two friends visiting the area, home for a few weeks from their normal lives in Kenya. In the course of conversation, one of them asked me, \u201cWhere do you experience God?\u201d My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}