Our Experiences: It is hard to be open to the idea of an encounter with God if our
experience with God or with those who believe in God has been negative. Let’s
face it, people who call themselves religious have perpetrated terrible things
in the name of God. The list is a veritable smorgasbord of atrocities: killing
abortion doctors, calling for the execution of homosexuals, genocide in the
name of religion, the Inquisition, name calling and labeling, slavery, environmental
plunder, and on and on.
The reality is, many people simply don’t have a
desire to believe in the God of people who perpetuate such crimes against
humanity, the environment and social justice. If what these believers stand for
is what God stands for, then forget it, say many people.
It is also possible that our own experiences
with God are obstacles to meaningful encounters with God. If we feel we have
been disappointed by God or let down by God or ignored by God or God hasn’t
measured up to our expectations of how God should act on our or other’s behalf,
then it becomes increasingly difficult to allow ourselves the possibility of
awareness and enlightenment about God’s transforming presence in our lives. Any
footprints we might see of God seem more like boot marks on our backside where
we feel run over by God.
Disappointment with God or with God’s believers
are huge obstacles that often prevent people from being open to even
acknowledging the existence of God much less a meaningful encounter with God.
Our Definitions: What we conceive God to be, how we define God, also affects our experience
of God. Is God personal? Is God one with whom you can have a real and intimate
relationship, a two-way conversation? Is God simply the universal energy and
spirit that acts as the force behind all cosmic life? Is God nothing more than
the best aspirations of humanity, the love and compassion manifested by people,
that which is most true in the deepest core of the human spirit? How you define
God will determine whether you seek a meaningful encounter with God.
Our Expectations: How you define God also shapes the expectations you have of God. If
God is a personal God who wants a loving relationship with you, then your
expectation of God for being loving and personal is high. And then if your
experience doesn’t match that expectation, you’re tempted to lose trust or hope
or confidence.
Or, many people have the paradigm that God only
shows up in certain places or certain ways or to certain people. Their expectations
for God are very specific and limited and localized. For example, people in the
Old Testament localized God’s presence primarily in the temple in Jerusalem or
in the ark of the covenant that resided in the temple. So that if the ark was
removed and taken somewhere, God’s presence went with it. God was primarily
confined to a building or piece of furniture or mediated only through priests.
The difficulty with that paradigm was that their
expectations limited their acceptance of God’s presence elsewhere. So, for
example, when Jesus came on the scene and claimed to be from God (John
described Jesus as the human incarnation of God), the religious leaders
ultimately rejected Him. John put it this way: “But although the world was made
through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. Even in his own land
and among his own people, he was not accepted.” (John
1:10-11, NLT)
Our expectations have a profound effect on our
openness and willingness to experience God. Expectations can be big obstacles
to encountering God. One of the great spiritual writers of our time, Philip
Yancey, wrote a book titled Finding God in
Unexpected Places. He talks about the
tendency for religious people under the duress of contemporary crises to
withdraw from the world, “to pull up the drawbridge and retreat behind a protective
moat. The ‘castle’ into which Christians retreat is the church. That makes me
sad because God does not limit himself to the four walls of a sanctuary.” (p.
ix)
He goes on in his book to describe glimpses of
the divine in surprising ways and places. “As a Christian journalist, I have
learned to look for traces of God. I have found those traces in unexpected
places: among the chief propagandists of a formerly atheistic nation, in a
leprosarium in India and an Atlanta slum and even a Chicago health club, at a
meeting of Amnesty International, on the Phil Donahue show, at a weekend
retreat with twenty Jews and Muslims, in the prisons of Peru and Chile, and
even in the plays of Shakespeare.” (p. xi)
His point is well made. God is not confined or
limited to the four walls of religious institutions or sacred places. God shows
up in the most unexpected places and ways. The issue is, do you see it when it
happens? Do your expectations and views of God allow for it?
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