Experiential Faith

You know, one inherent danger in blogging about this stuff (especially for people like me who tend to over-think), is that if we aren’t careful, we can end up approaching God, the church, theology and all the rest strictly as a mental exercise. I have some blogger friends who have vacated the online discussion simply because they got tired of talking theology and wanted to get back to simple, real-life stuff. I also know that when we try to approach God completely from the perspective of the mind, we’re bound to fall short. Inevitably there are going to be unanswered questions and apparent contradictions, and in some cases it has even caused people at different times to question their faith or abandon it completely.

But there is an element of this walk of faith we can’t overlook, and that is the element of experience. At some point, simply thinking about God, talking about God or trying to figure God out is not going to satisfy the deeper demands of our souls. We need to experience God in some way. I think that is a valid need.

I definitely enjoy thinking and talking about God (ergo, this blog), but at the end of the day, my ideas about God are not why I believe in Him.  I believe in God, at least in part, because I have encountered Him.  I have experienced God in ways that are difficult to describe in words–ways that are indelibly imprinted on my soul, that have changed me on the very inside, that make me virtually incapable of questioning His existence. It’s not just that I’ve had experiences that prove to me that He exists–it’s much more than that. These are experiences where God reached into my world and let me know in no uncertain that not only is He real, but that He loves me and is involved in my life. I have experienced that love in a way that I could not deny without denying my own soul.

Over time, during my deconstruction, I have questioned many preconceived notions I’ve had about God–but never during that time have I questioned the reality of God, not because I’m this huge faith giant, but because God is inextricably woven into my experience.

This element of experience in conversion is something that our western culture sometimes frowns upon, because we’re so intellectual that our intellect often gets in the way. We’re not satisfied unless we can have an explanation for everything, and it promotes a climate of unbelief, quite frankly. I think this in large part the reason why in third world countries, miracles and supernatural happenings are virtually commonplace, but seem to be far more rare in our culture. It seems like people in those other cultures simply don’t have a problem believing in the supernatural (even when their belief is misguided), so when it happens, they aren’t surprised or baffled.  As a result, they do experience the supernatural, while many in our culture question whether there even is such a thing as “supernatural.”

This sort of raises a paradox, doesn’t it? I just said I believe in Jesus because I’ve experienced Him, and yet it seems that one reason we don’t experience Him is because we struggle with belief.  So which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is seeing believing? Or is believing seeing?

I think Jesus answered this paradox with a simple concept, and we get a clue about it from how He ended many of the parables He taught: “He who has ears to hear–let him hear.”  In other references in Scripture, it talks about having “eyes to see”, as well. I think this really speaks to having hearts and minds that are inclined to see and hear.  Even if we have never before experienced God, there is something in the soul of man that God looks for–He looks for people who are inclined to believe, who have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear”, even before they see Him or hear Him. I think it is this inclination that invites God to encounter us, and enables us to experience Him.

So perhaps it’s really both, in a way. Seeing is believing. AND believing is seeing.  Think on that for awhile, fellow brainiacs. 🙂

I guess what I’m trying to arrive at with all this rambling is not to try and explain ALL aspects of experience and faith–just to bring out that experiencing God is part of being a believer, that it’s not enough to just try and explain Him. Knowing about God is not the same as knowing Him.

Here’s another example, one I’ve used before, probably. I don’t question the existence of my wife–granted, it’s easy to acknowledge her existence, because I can easily experience her presence in the real world with my physical senses. Beyond that, though–I have come to know her, not merely by learning about her, but by walking through life with her. There are still some times when I can’t figure her out–after all, people are a complicated species (and by “people” I don’t just mean “women” :D). But it is an ongoing process of learning to know her, through experience and relationship.

I think that’s a huge part of faith and the Christian walk. To truly know God, we have to walk with Him. And here’s the hard part: we might not have the luxury of some intervening supernatural experience with Him before we choose to believe. We might just need to start by having eyes to see and ears to hear–a heart that is inclined toward Him–before we actually start experiencing Him. But I do believe this: I see it all through the Bible that God does, and will, reveal Himself to people with eyes to see and ears to hear. Those who want to know Him (and by “know Him” I mean know Him as He is, not as what we want Him to be), I believe will at some point experience Him.

So how do we experience God? What does that experiential faith look like? I have some thoughts about that in the next post–although if you have some thoughts of your own, you can go ahead and share them here.