Connection with God is where Life Begins

What is the real value of a connection with God? As I consider the lives of people I know, I am pretty well convinced that far too many of them spend the majority of their time on this earth trapped in a small, confining existence. They go from one day to the next concerned almost exclusively with the material and intellectual things they can control or with trying to protect themselves from the things they can’t control. The kind of things I mean are the fundamentals of daily life like food, shelter, money, education, health, job, social status, etc. I would never suggest that we are wrong to be concerned with those things because they are all a necessary part of life. But what I am suggesting is that exclusive concern with them constitutes existence, not living, and that living in an exclusively material and intellectual existence is small, confining and misses the true meaning and purpose of life.

Life is far bigger than mere existence. It encompasses and goes beyond the everyday concerns that we all must face. Life is a transcendent concept and is much more difficult to describe than existence. It lifts us above the everyday grind and gives us a vantage point from which to experience everything with a greater sense of meaning, purpose, fulfillment and joy. And that lame explanation doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what life is really all about. But I am sure that experiencing “life” is why we are here. 

I am also sure that the difference between living and merely existing is primarily a spiritual issue rather than a physical, intellectual, or even emotional one. I don’t believe someone can go from a mundane existence to full-fledged living just because they decide one day that it’s a good idea or that it might feel better. I am certain that genuine living requires a change of heart in the spiritual sense rather than a change of mind in the intellectual sense. That’s because having a change of heart (an experience rather than a concept) is much more than an intellectual exercise. It is not simply something that you do. It is relational, in the sense that it involves more than just you. In fact, a change of heart is not something that you can control, but it depends on something or someone greater than yourself. For lack of a better word, it requires somehow being open to a genuine connection with God and being willing for God to become intimately involved in your life. And I am convinced that the “intimate” connection with God is the hardest part of this whole thing. 

What kind of connection with God are we looking for?

I think that most of us are much more comfortable with the distant God that we hear about in church or synagogue or whatever religious institution we might encounter than we are with the intimate God who supposedly “loves” us. That is because the distant God makes few demands on us. We don’t have to change anything we don’t want to change, and we can live with the illusion that ultimately, we are in control of our lives, our world, and pretty much everything. Best of all, we can put this distant God away when it is convenient and we don’t feel the need or desire for him or her, or it to be around. But the intimate God who “loves” us is always there whispering that life is so much more than being in control and having things our way shows us. That God, “our” God, is constantly pointing to a life that is larger and full of energy, enthusiasm, possibility, joy, fulfillment, peace, meaning, purpose, and everything else that makes it worthwhile. And, when we ask, “How do I find this life?”, God says, “Just by asking, you are beginning to find it. And, I am how you find it.”

Now, while it may begin to sound that way, I am not suggesting that living a meaningful and fulfilling life means that somehow people need to “get religion,” become “converted,” or be “born again.”  It doesn’t require having anything like my childhood experience, which I share on the Knowing God page, or falling to the floor and talking in tongues, or any other particular kind of experience.  Not that there is anything that is particularly negative about any of those experiences. The first key to genuine living is translating an experience of God into the realization (here is where the intellect comes in) that you are not the center of the universe, nor are you the reason for the universe. But, equally as important, is the realization that the universe exists for you (and for everybody else) and that your well-being, happiness, and life are of paramount importance to the universe and to the God who created and sustains it.

My first experience of God was the realization (although I couldn’t quite analyze it very well when I was seven years old) of how expansive and limitless life is and how much I matter to the universe. Now, for someone who has never had any experience of God or awareness that life is expansive and limitless, I doubt that this makes very much sense. And for those who equate God, spiritual life, and salvation strictly with the Christian church, or any other exclusive religious system, it probably makes even less sense and may have crossed the heresy, blasphemy, and offensive bad taste threshold. Nonetheless, I have to offer this as a fundamental truth of where my spirituality and life began. 

The Bottom Line

In short, I firmly believe that genuine living begins with some kind of connection with “God”. That connection offers us the opportunity to open our hearts and minds to an awareness of both the transcendence and immanent presence of God, and it gives us a glimpse of God’s love for us, which lifts us beyond existence and adds an unending wellspring of hope, peace and joy to our lives.

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