Experiencing God

When I was in seminary, we often fell into the trap of confusing talking about God with believing in God. Yet, talking about is not believing in, and talking about God can be used as camouflage, concealing the fact that we may not believe in God much at all. Believing in God does not mean we believe that God exists, but that we believe we can trust the God who exists. There are many people who claim to believe in the existence of God, but they do not seem to like the God in whom they claim to believe, or they are afraid of that God, or they resent that God, or they live as though God does not exist at all, in spite of their claims that He does.

Just as there is a difference between talking about God and believing in God, there is a huge difference between knowing about God and experiencing God -- just as there is a huge difference between knowing about falling in love and actually falling in love. I can sit in a classroom in a university and study the Laws of Physics. I can know why and how an airplane can fly through the sky. I can understand how it all works. But when I am riding in the airplane at thirty-thousand feet, I do not just know the Laws of Physics, I am experiencing them -- I am relying on them.

Frequently availing myself of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and working the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius have allowed me to experience God, who is love. Basically my experience, not knowledge, but experience, is that I am a deeply flawed human being, but God loves me anyway. That was a huge “aha” moment when I experienced that! I knew I was flawed, but I thought God hated my flaws, and was not happy with me because of my flaws. Yet, I experienced God’s love in spite of my flaws. My KNOWLEDGE of God had me believing that God says something like: “I want to love you, but you are hard to love. You’re a sinner and I hate sin! So when you straighten yourself out, and stop sinning, then I’ll love you.” My EXPERIENCE of God has me hearing God say something like: “I love you! It doesn’t matter who you are, or how you live, or what you do, I love you!” Just knowing about God had me believing that God rejected me because of my flaws; experiencing God has me understanding that God accepts me in spite of my flaws.

When I believed that God rejected me because of my flaws, I also believed that God rejected others because of theirs. Then the practice seems to be spending all my time exposing the flaws of others, and pronouncing how they are rejected by God because of those flaws because the more I focus on their flaws, the less I have to focus on mine. Then I can convince myself that I really do not have any flaws at all, and even if I do, they are not as bad as the flaws of the people around me. I convince myself that I am doing the Lord’s work by accusing and condemning others because of their obvious flaws -- I guess hoping that God will be so grateful for all my hard work exposing the flaws in others, that He will overlook my mine.

That is what Satan does. Satan means “adversary” and in the original Hebrew construct of the divine court, Satan served as the District Attorney. Satan’s role was to prosecute human beings, showing evidence for their sins. The Greek word devil means “accuser” and can mean “slanderer.” Satan’s role is to expose the flaws of human beings, charging them before God, so that God will punish or reject them. It is like when you are in love with someone, and they leave you for someone else, you spend your time trying to expose the flaws in the person you were rejected for. If Satan is anything like us, I am sure that Satan is convinced that all the accusations and condemning is for God’s benefit, and that God is being served as a result.

So the irony is that many Christians are convinced that they are serving God, and being good models of what faithful service to God looks like, but they are actually behaving exactly like Satan. They spend their time exposing the flaws in others. They spend their time accusing others. They spend their time condemning others. They think they know God because they have never experienced God -- because if they have experienced God, then they have experienced God’s love, the love that says “I love you no matter what!” So when I love someone no matter what, then I am like God; when I condemn someone, judge someone, expose their flaws, I am more like Satan and less like God, while convincing myself that I am serving God, instead of the truth, which is that I am merely serving my own ego.

So my experience of God is that God loves me no matter what. God loves others no matter what. I serve God by loving others no matter what. My experience with God is that I am a deeply flawed human being; yet, God loves me anyway. I am surrounded by deeply flawed human beings; yet, God loves them anyway. If I can learn to accept their flaws, just as God has accepted mine, then maybe I can learn to love them too.

Reviews

[emmajoy]

An incredible and enlightening piece of writing that i've now read three times at different times of the day or night and in different 'moods'. You write your thoughts so concisely, near blaming self for being human. But, alternatively, here you are, writing to help us understand that whatever we are we're allowed to have not flaws but frailties.

Is n't it a considered fact that flaws are what make human beings the endlessly re-strung who and glorious what they are. God knows that because He knows what is and still guides us even to this day. He surely exists to illuminate Mankind whereas his adversary would have us walking in darkness. Perhaps to see another flaws is to see one's own and thus to accept them as human frailties. And by that acceptance, with prayer and thought takes a person nearer .. light. Maybe?

[Emily B]

finding words to leave after reading this was no easy feat, i started and stopped and re-wrote, and started again

thank you for sharing your messages with us