Experience is Important

Christianity is a lot of things; a religion (yes it is), a relationship, the narrative of the human condition, an intellectual journey, an experience, and much much more. I think of all these things, a lot of us tend to devalue the experience part of it. Though it is so vital, I can see why we don't always emphasize it. It's completely out of our control. It's scary. Not only do we not control it, we can't predict it. But I think we still miss out. We don't control how God acts, but we can control how perceptive of it we are. A lot of times we don't see it because we're not looking for it.

Being a Christian is experiencing everything it is to be human in the context of our redeemed, whole, nature and in the presence of our loving Creator. It's not simply an emotional experience, but it is so deep that we are limited to expressing it through emotional language. Maybe that's another reason we devalue it. We know emotional language isn't significant enough to communicate it, but we have no other means.

Where is this coming from? As I continue to work with my friend who just became a Christian, I am seeing him experience God in very real ways, and experiencing it with him. He talks of the peace that he feels has overwhelmed him. I can feel God there as we meet, talk, read and pray. I think he gets this a lot better than a lot of people I know who have been Christians for a long time. He's not only determined to keep reading, asking and learning, but also keeps asking what he can do. We talk not only about the different spiritual disciplines, but also how we can encounter God throughout the day. We're also going to his first church service tonight, and we're both excited.

I just read "The Practice of the Presence of God" which is a bunch of letters from a monk that were complied a few centuries ago about how he encounters God in the tedious kitchen tasks he has been assigned. Folding hundreds of T-shirts while while hundreds of customers are unfolding them in front of and behind you in the Mt. Rushmore gift shop is a great place to practices this. I think we as Christians can make the choice of when and where to encounter God. This reminds me of every Gospel, where after Jesus has performed healings, fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, walked on water and described himself as the bread of life, the people ask him for a sign to prove he is who he says he is (read the first 6 chapters of John). Understandably, this frustrates Jesus. God is working all around us, yet we don't recognize it, we don't look for it. God created us, our five senses and everything that those five senses encounter. How can we not encounter God every day if our eyes are really open to it?

As much as we can choose to encounter God everyday as Christians, as nonchristians we can't control our initial experience with God.

I think this is what makes relating to non-christians very difficult. We choose to live our lives differently because of our physical, emotional and spiritual experiences with God, that they haven't had yet. Last night on a midnight food run after work, me and two non-christians got to talk about this. Some people have pretty much written them off as a lost cause because of some of their actions and language. This was pretty much just a defense mechanism, against Christians because of some of the hurt that has been caused them by Christians. I was astonished at how they opened up when they saw I wasn't putting them off just because they swore or are different than a lot of people here.

It was heartbreaking to talk to them, because their problems are with Christians, not with God. They haven't experienced God for themselves yet, but have been judged by those who claim they have. The Gospels make it pretty clear that it's not our place to judge, only God's, yet we do it anyway. I hope it planted a seed when I said I only live my life in the way that I do because of my experiences with God, and that I can't judge them for not having that experience. I don't see how some people think that telling nonchristians to follow Christian standards, telling someone who doesn't know Jesus that they need "more Jesus in their life", saying "just go to church" or just be a Christian helps them encounter God, or in some way will make them more open to being a Christian. We need to be with people, listen to their hurt, apologize if that hurt came from a Christian and explain how we all fall short of the standard we want to live by. We can't force Christianity on people or force them to experience God. Ultimately that is under God's control. It is our ministry to model the Christian life, demonstrate God's love for them and hope and pray they encounter it directly. Then, when God does work in someone's life, we need to show them how to be open to see God's work daily.

I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense, ask questions if you want. I'm finding that I'm learning a lot about how God works in people from new Christians and non-christians, and it's really hard to fit it all into a blog.