by gskern » September 27th, 2005, 1:30 am
While I can appreciate the personal stories, anecdotes, sermonettes, and Scripture references that have comprised the bulk of the posts here, those things don't address the point; and if the Circularity of a statement along the lines of, "You experience God as you learn to trust Him" isn't immediately apparent and obvious, I'm really at a loss as to how to explain any further...
And I must be quick to add, as a broken-down, sinful, yet profoundly convinced Christian, I do wish that I could enjoy an interaction with God that is objective, matter-of-fact, and mutual. The very fact that there is any room at all to wonder, "is that God talking to me or me talking to myself??" IS, itself, the problem... And as I've said, I have no evidence to sway Probabilities one way or the other...
One more analogy, if you'll indulge me:
When my old grandmother used to extend her boney old hand out to me and ask for my help getting out of her chair, and I did so, there was a Mutual Relationship going on there: I exerted only enough energy to help (didn't want to yank her across the room) and she exerted only enough energy to leverage my help; our MUTUAL input brought about an end result that would have been meaningless and ineffectual for both myself and my grandmother (respectively). FRIENDSHIPS are the same way: You cannot have a Friendship without the independent, MUTUAL input of 2 distinct, REAL persons... (ok, one analogy + one example... sorry...)
Imagine how silly it would have been to see grandma with her arm stretched out, and then seeing her struggle to her feet, and then to have her turn to me and say, "my friend Ritchie helps me out of my chair when I want to get up!" I would glance around the room, smirk a little bit, and then turn to my wife and say, "honey, grandma's been hitting that pain medication a little too heavily... we gotta do something about that..."
Now I realize we believe God is actually REAL, that He EXISTS... the Alpha and Omega, the Uncaused Cause. We -- even me -- believe He is everywhere, including right here in my office, perhaps watching over my shoulder as I type this sentence. But there is this curtain -- a veil -- of profound SILENCE that greets me when I attempt to engage Him in what we might call a "relationship"; bear in mind, even IF "relationship" is possible with our Unseen Sovereign, we perhaps ought to assign a different word to it, because this whatever-you-want-to-call-it is unlike ANY "relationship" we might ever have with ANY other being, and defies our weak attempts to describe it in the same terms...
And because my World View affords me that luxury, sometimes I too give in to (what I believe to be) universal Human urges to Worship something (someone) higher than man, and to direct impulses of Thankfulness and Supplication upward to a Person instead of a rock or the sun or a cow...
But an occasional effusive outburst is a FAR cry from "relationship", and the echo of Silence we receive in return is stunning, made bearable for the moment only insofar as we can manage to stay in the reverie...
