How Can We Experience God?
By Ryan E. Faison
Student Ministries Pastor at Christ Church
From an anecdotal perspective, I can bear witness to experiencing God throughout my life. But these experiences were never narrowly defined as a validating guarantee—like having a vision of Heaven or hearing God’s audible voice similar to a sound I would hear on my phone. Rather, these experiences were in what could be considered the routine, the ordinary or my conventional day-to-day reality.
Oftentimes, historically recorded experiences of God, as described in the Holy Bible and in the Judeo-Christian tradition, are defined as “miraculous” and “supernatural.” Occurring thousands of years ago, such miracles are without the accessibility of scientifically verifiable evidence to support their claim. Yet, in my experiences with God today, I too do not have scientific evidence to provide. I can only offer intimations of God—beyond a vague feeling of being wowed or moved—but being transformed inwardly and externally. Using the basic principle of rationality(that I ought to believe that things are the way they seem to be)in the absence of counterevidence, I must acknowledge that I’ve experienced God.
And you can too.
If there’s a willingness to discover this possibility, I recommend the following ways to experience the presence and nature of God:
You can experience God physically.
According to the Holy Bible, God expressed Himself through physical reality. In fact, He placed a value on it by stating, “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31) when referring to all that He made. If we explore the Scriptures as the foundation for our discovery, we come to understand that God didn’t just tell us about Himself; he demonstrated who He was. In this demonstration, the Old and New Testaments, or both portions of the Bible, invite the reader to respond with our bodies—shouting to God, singing songs, clapping hands, kneeling and bowing down, lifting up one’s hands in worship—as an instrument of praise. In this place of worship, experiencing God becomes ever more manifest in our individual and communal moments.
You can experience God through nature.
As we explore our natural world, we even see the experience of God in the sights, smells and sounds of a place as part of His Creation in the same way you experience who a person is through a song or piece of art they created. When we take the time to absorb the natural elements around us, it can speak to a transcendent Creator that goes beyond our limits of ingenuity and creativity. The mundane can become more. Experiencing God physically will only expand in what we do every day. These moments are not limited to once-in-a-lifetime revelations, but daily opportunities for authentic encounters.
You can experience God by the choices you make.
There’s power in the choices we make every day. If we are to embrace the journey of experiencing God, it starts in our hearts. We have the power to choose creating space to experience God in our habits, our decisions and in our daily disciplines. One of my favorite books is Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. In his book, Foster makes this compelling argument regarding incorporating spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting and studying the Scriptures in our lives:
“The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.”1
Even when we examine major world religions, we see a common thread in their prominent figures. Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, and Confucius identified themselves as a prophet or teacher. None ever claimed to be equal to God.
You can experience God intellectually.
Unlocking the mysteries of God has been the search of humanity for centuries. Yet, the Hebrew Scriptures offer how God took the initiative of revealing Himself through words. As if this wasn’t enough, the Gospel or one of the accounts of the life of Jesus in the New Testament speaks of the Word being God who became flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ (John 1:14). What a miracle! But let’s be cautious—we cannot simply explain the unexplainable only in terms of miraculous interventions. The Apostle Paul spoke directly to the use of human reason to engage our experiences with God. In other words, mindlessly interacting with God is not the pattern of the Scriptures. In fact, it speaks to the opposite—engage your mind!
But you may ask—how can one do this when the basis of the Judeo-Christian tradition is faith or believing that which you cannot see with your physical eyes? Faith and intellect are not opposing forces. The greater you employ your mind, the more grounded you can be in your faith. I would argue that deep, inward transformation with God must engage your intellect—asking the hard questions, engaging in logical reasoning, and diving deeper into the context and greater understanding of the Scriptures. Here’s what Jesus said about faith being interwoven with our intellect and emotions:
“30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 NIV
You can experience God emotionally.
Another way to experience God is emotionally. Admittedly, feelings and emotions tend to have a bad reputation as they relate to God encounters. It can appear to be subjective to one’s emotional “high” or another’s desire to believe in something greater than their current existence. These realities do not diminish the reality that God wants us to still experience Him in our hearts, souls and mind.
As you explore the Bible, you will find profound emotional experiences connected with God. It’s the language of worship. Psalmists or writers of psalms (sacred songs or hymns) freely expressed emotion in their prayers, many weeping before the Lord in grief or anger and even having great moments of joy and celebration.
As human beings, we are not dispassionate about our core values or philosophy of life. Quite frequently, these emotions are on display. To experience God, authentic expressions of emotions in prayer, in worship and in heartfelt gratitude fulfill the biblical pattern of giving your whole self to God. Counterfeit or manufactured emotionalism will never measure up. While there will be a risk of opening up emotionally, such transparency will lead to many experiences with God—the God who wants to have a relationship with you.
1 Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), p.7
