How often are you actually pursuing God and not just an experience of Him? I was convicted a few months ago about this very thing. I find that I am often searching for the experience and not the person. Living in the US had numbed me to this realization because EVERYTHING is set up to give you a good experience. Burger King wants you to have it your way and get your order right in the drive thru so that your experience is good and you come back. Even our churches do this. They try to play the newest songs with the right lighting and try not to ever hit a wrong note so that our worship experience is good.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this is all bad. It is good that we strive for excellence in the things that we do. Far be it for me to say that creating experience is wrong when marketing and making things look pretty is what I have made a career out of. What is wrong though is when our need for an experience flows into our relationship with God. When the experience becomes our idol we've lost the essence of what relationship means.
What really helped me come to realize this major flaw in myself has been living in Spain. When all the pretty familiar stuff that creates a good experience is stripped away then what am I left with? When I no longer have a great Sunday worship experience to look forward to, or a good group of friends to challenge me, or a weekend retreat to go to then what am I left with? What I am left with is the raw, nitty gritty, of a relationship. The mundane. The everyday. I am left with the work that it takes to maintain a good relationship. I would imagine this is true with marriage and it is also true in our relationship with God.
I find that I get bored with my daily Bible study when I don't have some great revelation or experience a special closeness with God in that moment. I get bored with Spanish church when I don't understand the whole sermon or the music doesn't especially move me. In those moments I am telling God that I don't care about Him but I care about the experiences I get from knowing Him. How horrible is that! I could not imagine saying something that horrible to my family let alone to my Savior. And yet, that is exactly what I do when I seek the experience instead of the relationship.
The experiences we are given in this life, good or bad, are to be enjoyed and learned from but not lived for. It is time to seek the person instead of the experience.
"God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him." -John Piper
1 Response to Living Without Experience
I know this is something I have struggled with, often. When I'm not getting what I want... do I persevere and continue anyway? Not a lot. I'm so conditioned to comfort. And sometimes, even... it is more than not having the experience, but even not having the experience I WANT to have... it doesn't fit into my "box" of what an experience with God looks like. It's just like the idea of praying for patience... I don't do that so much, because God will give me the opportunity to practice it!
thanks for posting this... I know it was a few months ago, but it greatly encouraged me today. I am praying for you!!
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