Unless (Blah Blah Blah), You've Not Experienced God

Yesterday, in Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, I read the following (see here):

“The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet— getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God— it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. Only after the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable ‘darkness’ of realizing who He is. Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life’ (John 6:63). Once, the Bible was just so many words to us — ‘clouds and darkness’— then, suddenly, the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us when our circumstances make the words new.”

I have a variety of reactions to this, all of them negative.

First of all, I get sick of reading or hearing Christians say (and I paraphrase), “If such-and-such is not true in your life, then you obviously have not met God, or Jesus Christ.” In Chambers’ case, it’s approaching God with respect and reverence rather than informally and flippantly. I once heard another preacher say that, if we’re not extemporaneously thanking God for every beautiful thing we see in life, then we’re probably not in Christ. But why exactly is that my fault? I said the sinner’s prayer years ago. If I have not had a genuine encounter with God, isn’t that on God and not on me?

It also interests me that people have different ideas about how to approach God. Some say we should do so with reverence and with respect, not informally. Others, by contrast, say that we can freely talk to God as if God is a friend. Both make dogmatic claims that they have experienced God. Both, at times, make judgments about whether or not other people have truly experienced God. But who are they to judge others, when they can’t even agree on what constitutes evidence for a true spiritual experience?

Second, what Chambers says about Jesus’ words making sense to us once Jesus re-speaks them to us in our situations reminds me of a conversation I had with an evangelical Christian not long ago. He said that he truly began to understand the Bible after he accepted Jesus into his heart, and that those who do not know Christ do not understand spiritual things. Now, I’m not suggesting that this gentleman does not understand the Bible. He has been trained in biblical exegesis, and so he is able to make a reasonable and cogent interpretation of biblical passages. But, in my opinion, he understands the Bible insofar as he practices principles of biblical exegesis. Reading the Bible and believing that it conforms to some grand evangelical narrative that evangelicals are projecting onto the text at the outset does not strike me as understanding the Bible. Sure, once my friend became a Christian, he received a worldview that made sense to him, but that is not the same as understanding the Bible—-in terms of its diversity, its interaction with historical circumstances, the original meanings of its writings, etc.

But do I believe that God can make the text come alive to us in a way that’s enlightening and applicable? I believe so. That doesn’t happen all too often with me. But, while an a-ha experience is good, I don’t think that I have to have that to read the Bible and to find wisdom for my life. Also, regardless of what Chambers or anyone else says, God loves me, whether or not I have some dramatic encounter with him.

Going Out on Faith?

I don’t plan to blog through every single entry in Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, but I’ll blog about entries whenever I feel like doing so.

In the January 2 entry, Oswald Chambers says the following:

“Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do— He reveals to you who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you ‘go out’ in complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?…Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to ‘go out’ in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus.”

I like this entry better than the one yesterday (see here) because it emphasizes getting to know God for who he is, rather than trying to discern what God is supposedly doing. My problem, though, is that even this entry assumes that we can be dogmatic about what God is doing. If the idea is that I should trust God to provide for my needs, then I’m cool with that (though, of course, I would ask why there are so many people in the world whose needs do not appear to be provided for). But if the point is, say, that God may want me to be a missionary, and so I should go out on faith, then I’d have issues with that, for I’d wonder how I can even be sure that God would want me to be a missionary (and I’m just using an example here).

I’m not overly dogmatic about what God is or is not doing in my life or in the world, for I do not know. But I do try to trust that God is full of love and grace, whatever happens, and hopefully that can influence me to make good decisions that help myself and other people. That will not stop me from praying for things, but I don’t really believe that God has some grand plan for my life with which I need to be in tune. But, as I said, I hold on to God’s love and grace.

On a somewhat related note, see Bob Greaves’ post here.

What Costly Act?

I read a handful of daily devotionals, and, this year, one of them will be Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest. I didn’t care much for what Chambers said yesterday, but maybe I’ll be able to eat the meat and spit out the bones as I read him this year, or to see how even the bones can have some profound, redemptive point.

Here’s the reading for January 1. The topic is surrender to Jesus. Chambers says the following:

“It is absolute and irrevocable surrender of the will at that point. An undue amount of thought and consideration for ourselves is what keeps us from making that decision, although we cover it up with the pretense that it is others we are considering. When we think seriously about what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He doesn’t know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point— He does know. Shut out every other thought and keep yourself before God in this one thing only— my utmost for His highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and Him alone.”

I guess my question is: What would God want me to do that is so costly to me and to others? And how would I even know that it’s God who wants me to do that, and not my own obsessive-compulsiveness or guilt-tripping of myself, sometimes in response to what some Christian dogmatically proclaims is the “will of God”?