Experiencing God . . . Or Not

Ed Welch

Everyone who believes that God exists would like “a personal encounter with God.” We want that back-and-forth, knowing-and-being-known, emotional liveliness that is the fruit of a growing relationship. No one who follows Jesus harbors dreams of emotional and experiential dryness. Instead, bring on that promised abundant life (John 10:10).
Moses led the way. He wanted to feel God. He wanted the promises of God bolstered by a display of God’s glory (Ex.33:18). Times were tough. Doubt was in the air. A little experiential boost in which God confirmed his promises to Israel would go a long way. And God accommodated Moses’ request. His glory would go whooshing by and Moses would get to see God’s back, which we assumed happened but Moses doesn’t record the event.
The desire to experience God is a good thing, a very good thing. Scripture leads us in our aspirations for full-bodied praise, love and unity.
But there is a problem. What about those who feel God’s absence but desperately want to know his presence? What about those who sense that God hides himself, and he seems to do it at the times we need him most? What about those who’s emotional experience is so dominated by depression or fear that the experience of God just cannot break through?
Questions like these bring us back to Scripture – back to the Lord – with internal tensions that acknowledge both “I will never leave you or forsake you” and “My God why have you forsaken me.”
What we find in Scripture are the deeper ways of God with his people. “Sometimes God puts his children to bed in the dark” is one way to put it. Another way is this: in this era, our God has chosen to make walking by faith more fundamental, and more blessed, than walking by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). This means that there will be many times when we can see the goodness of the Lord with our very eyes. But there will be other times when our experience says “God is far away” and he counters “I am with you.” In those cases, his words win.
Just expand the word “sight” in “walking by sight” to include all things sensory, such as our emotions. Then we are back on track: God is speaking right to us. He is not far away. This teaching gets to the heart of Scripture. Scripture exists because we need revelation. We can’t see reality clearly with the naked eye. Scripture is God’s technology that allows us to see everything we need to see.
You don’t feel his presence? Here are God’s words to you.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)

There it is. Our senses say that we are destitute; God reveals that we have spiritual food that is profoundly satisfying. Our goal is to hear the word of the Lord in such a way that it drowns out our less-informed emotions.
CCEF