I have a deep, continual and desperate desire to "experience" God. I also do not have a clear understanding relative to just what experiencing God is supposed to be like.
Here is an idea that I do have, maybe right, maybe wrong: Experiencing God is a good thing. I think that if I show up (and I do) and allow Him to determine what happens during our time together, then I will “experience” Him and will have come to know Him better resulting in my detachment from the world, the flesh and the devil.
Just now I sat quietly for around a half an hour. I tried to focus on Him and not my own stuff (although I did do some serious intercession) – I understand how me-centered prayer can be.
I also understand a bit about God’s Grace, Providence and Timing. I understand that the previous 30 minutes was a good thing, period. I have God’s word on it.
But, am I truly getting to know Him better? If that is defined as I did above, I begin to wonder if I am. I am inundated with evil thoughts, fantasies, and am very often drawn into sin.
What does an “experience” of God look like? What does it feel? How can one improve on the “experience”? Sure, I understand the danger of connecting experience with feelings, but I just wanted to ask those questions anyway.
I sure would like help… as if I’m not doing well “experiencing” God. Maybe I am doing well-er than I thought! Maybe I need to pray Psalm 139:23,24 more often and with more fervor. Maybe I have this deep hidden sin that remains un-confessed and therefore a mass impediment to my experience of God. Maybe, as Brennan manning says of his times with God, “I think He is just glad I showed up!!”
Maybe God is holding out. Maybe I am going through a desert, and God is intentionally allowing me to experience dryness so that he can shape me somehow.
Then, how do I explain my irritability? My impatience? My critical spirit? My fear? Why is peace so elusive?
I know I am in good company with many of the psalmists, but often even that does little good in consoling me. I want, I long for an experience with God, to experience His manifest Presence, His divine Encouragement in a noticeable way. A way that, when it happens, I have a keen awareness of it. I sure would like to have an emotional thing happen. I mean, how do we know something happens if we don’t … experience it with some sort of sense, for crying out loud?
I am not discouraged – maybe that is confirmation that I have, indeed, experienced God. I am not about to give up. I am not gonna quit, either! I am not going to live in the future when …. God has me in the now… where He is.
He has promised that He is “with me always, even unto the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). That is good enough for me (possibly another sign that I have experienced God, huh?)
Here is an idea that I do have, maybe right, maybe wrong: Experiencing God is a good thing. I think that if I show up (and I do) and allow Him to determine what happens during our time together, then I will “experience” Him and will have come to know Him better resulting in my detachment from the world, the flesh and the devil.
Just now I sat quietly for around a half an hour. I tried to focus on Him and not my own stuff (although I did do some serious intercession) – I understand how me-centered prayer can be.
I also understand a bit about God’s Grace, Providence and Timing. I understand that the previous 30 minutes was a good thing, period. I have God’s word on it.
But, am I truly getting to know Him better? If that is defined as I did above, I begin to wonder if I am. I am inundated with evil thoughts, fantasies, and am very often drawn into sin.
What does an “experience” of God look like? What does it feel? How can one improve on the “experience”? Sure, I understand the danger of connecting experience with feelings, but I just wanted to ask those questions anyway.
I sure would like help… as if I’m not doing well “experiencing” God. Maybe I am doing well-er than I thought! Maybe I need to pray Psalm 139:23,24 more often and with more fervor. Maybe I have this deep hidden sin that remains un-confessed and therefore a mass impediment to my experience of God. Maybe, as Brennan manning says of his times with God, “I think He is just glad I showed up!!”
Maybe God is holding out. Maybe I am going through a desert, and God is intentionally allowing me to experience dryness so that he can shape me somehow.
Then, how do I explain my irritability? My impatience? My critical spirit? My fear? Why is peace so elusive?
I know I am in good company with many of the psalmists, but often even that does little good in consoling me. I want, I long for an experience with God, to experience His manifest Presence, His divine Encouragement in a noticeable way. A way that, when it happens, I have a keen awareness of it. I sure would like to have an emotional thing happen. I mean, how do we know something happens if we don’t … experience it with some sort of sense, for crying out loud?
I am not discouraged – maybe that is confirmation that I have, indeed, experienced God. I am not about to give up. I am not gonna quit, either! I am not going to live in the future when …. God has me in the now… where He is.
He has promised that He is “with me always, even unto the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). That is good enough for me (possibly another sign that I have experienced God, huh?)
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