Experiencing God

January 21, 2022

In yesterday’s 6:00 am prayer group, pastor Joe prayed that we would experience God through all our senses—to smell his fragrance, feel his touch through the sensors in our skin, to taste him in the Bread and Wine.

I’m not a touchy-feely guy. I know what I’m thinking at any given moment; I’m less apt to know what I’m feeling. My faith isn’t dependent on feelings; they are too fickle and false for me to depend on them. If I lived by my feelings, my faith would be down in the gutter most days, with occasional rises to normalcy, only rarely ascending to what most would call real joy. But Joe got me to thinking. One of the earliest Christian heresies was Gnosticism, which taught that the physical world, especially the body, is evil; only the spirit can be good. This teaching manifested in various ways, one of which was to minimize the body and emphasize only the spirit.

Orthodox Christianity rejected this teaching, insisting on the salvation of the whole person, not just the immaterial part of us. The Church insisted upon the bodily resurrection of Jesus for this reason. The natural world was created good, and will be redeemed. God’s plan of redemption extends to all Creation.

I believe in the significance of this material world in God’s economy. What we do with our bodies is important, but as I reflected on Joe’s prayer, I realized that I’ve separated the physical and spiritual in my everyday life, shutting out the fullness of how God created me and how he chooses to relate to me. He is revealed not only in and to our spirits, but also in our bodies. The problem is that I’ve never developed the ability to experience God in all of who I am. 

The Bible says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Feel the texture of the Bread upon my tongue, savor the flavor of the wine. Like Elijah, may I feel the touch of God’s tap upon my shoulder. May all of who I am experience and respond as much as humanly possible to all of who God is.