Experiencing God

This week Joel and went to a bible study at the home of one of the doctors in town. The group was studying a book about listening to God and hearing his voice. This weeks chapter was about creating special "meeting places" for prayer. By this, the author meant special places that we either physically go or through our imaginations for prayer. He was suggesting other ways in which we could experiment to seek more intimate experiences.

I've been thinking about this. For awhile I wondered if God actually ever spoke to believers. I've concluded that he does BUT that it is less common then a lot of people claim and not something that we can seek or manipulate through techniques. The examples in scripture that I find are not of people going to their prayer closet to get a word from the Lord but rather, people that are given words from God when they're not seeking it. Occasionally I read examples of people in scripture that inquire of God with certain questions and are given specific undeniable answers but more often than not it seems that God is the one that initiates conversations.

More generally, it seems that pursuing experiences with God of any stripe is putting the cart before the horse. Our joy and intimacy seems more to be his job to give then our job to chase after. We're supposed to be busy obeying, serving and loving others. We find our strength for these tasks by leaning on him through prayer and fasting. He then gives us, when he sees fit, all those nice feeling. The feelings are a gift of grace. They can't be bought for any price.

I think that all this focus in evangelicalism on feeling seeking is driven by the fact that most of us like to squirm out of responsibility and get the feeling some other way. It's seems rather a little like Simon the Sorcerer trying to buy the power of God.

I do recognize the need to seek God in prayer but I don't think this should eclipse our job of being out in the world witnessing, loving, serving, feeding, and proclaiming the good news. Even Jesus put aside prayer to serve the people at least once. In Matt 25 when Jesus speaks of the sheep and the goats being separated at judgment day he says the separation of the two groups is dependent on what we have done for the lowliest people not on how often or intimately we pray. Let us all consider where we are putting our focus.