With many Christians an ice breaker is needed to get to know God, much like the games played when meeting a new group of people. It seems every time we turn around there is a book that has a new way to experience God which can be good and bad. Good if you are new to reading God’s Word or you’ve tried before and can’t seem to get anything out of it but to those who experience God’s presence fresh and new every morning these steps and labels can be very restricting. Not that we should be unteachable but don’t be so easily bent into the box where we are told God is waiting for us. This concept is difficult to describe, so let’s look at it a different way.
If I don’t know anything about deep sea fishing and therefore read a book on how to do it I would find many helpful things in it that would get me started. However, you give that same book to a boat captain who does it for a living what response do you think you’ll get? I’m not saying he wouldn’t read it, I’m not saying he wouldn’t see a different perspective but what I would expect is that very little would change in his daily activity even though when I read it I depended upon it completely to be successful. Yet when we are going through a Christian book that is intended to help us experience God I sometimes feel like I’m in a room of contortionist!
I wonder what God thinks of us bending and stretching when all along He simply waits for us to invite Him in? You know simply spending time with someone is the best way to get to know them and while books and videos can help they can never take you to the deep places because that is one man/woman’s idea about what worked best for them. Because we are all different the secret garden or the quiet meadow of experiencing God ‘s heart for us can only be shown to us by following His lead, not the path of someone else – understand God alone takes us there!
They who go down to the sea in ships, who do business in great waters; these see the works of Jehovah and His wonders in the deep. For He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up its waves. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and all their wisdom is swallowed up. And they cry to Jehovah in their trouble, and He brings them out of their troubles. He makes the storm a calm, so that its waves are still. And they are glad because they are quiet; so He brings them to their desired haven.
(Psalms 107:23-30 MKJV)
It is through life’s journey, good times and bad, walking hand in hand with God, not doubting His goodness or insight for our lives that we are able to experience God’s presence. For only by His presence do we come to recognize the character of God and once we recognize the character of God we see Him in everything we do. It is at this point that we pray without ceasing, that we enquire what God’s will is, and we are quick to follow His leading. The old saying WWJD “what would Jesus do” was so over used and misunderstood to the point that no one says it any more but much like that deep sea captain, those who follow Jesus on a regular basis neither were moved by it when it was over used or ignored it when everyone stopped using it but continued following Jesus as they always had because they knew only Jesus could lead them to their desired haven.
