Knowing God

Now, up to this point I have talked about spiritual growth and development from a point of view which presupposes some kind of awareness and understanding of, for lack of a better word, “God”. It is clear that throughout the world there are a multitude of divergent conceptions and characterizations of the who, what, and how of “God”. But one of my favorite mentors and spiritual teachers always insisted that any discussion of knowing God must begin with one foundational principal.

That principal was this: “There ain’t nobody who knows nothin’ for sure about God but God. And she ain’t tellin’.”

I believe this to be a significant piece of wisdom, and it puts us all on the same level when we seek to know and begin to understand God. However, the truth is that knowing all about God is far beyond our ability, and that tends to create the biggest problem for us because it makes God a mystery, and we don’t like a mystery unless we can solve it.

Theologians from all religions throughout history have tried their very best to discover and unravel the mystery of God, but even they have discovered that understanding exactly who and what God is, and how God works is far beyond human comprehension. Now, while I run the risk of being cynical about human nature, I tend to believe that the fundamental reason why we want to solve this mystery, and learn all there is to know about God, is so we can determine how to control and get what we want from God.

When it comes to developing a relationship with God, it is critical to realize that there is a significant difference between knowing about God and knowing God. You see, knowing about God is easy. It is much the same process as learning about another person, and it involves gathering data, facts, and even experiences, which inform our personal opinions and impressions. However, knowing God requires us to go beyond simple perception and impression and experience a deeper personal connection on both an emotional, and spiritual level.

Making that kind of connection with God may sound like an intimidating, complicated, and unnerving “other-worldly” experience, but most often it is as simple as having a momentary awareness of the presence of someone or something greater than we are in the universe, and that awareness tends to happen at the times we least expect it. For some, it occurs during moments of great beauty, like an amazing sunrise or sunset, the birth of a baby, the grandeur of mountains or the seaside, or anything that lifts us out of our everyday limits and allows us to glimpse a greater reality that makes life worthwhile. Those are the moments in which we can begin to know and develop an intimate friendship with God.

The point I am trying to make here, is that the process of coming to know God, like the process of becoming a friend or being in love with someone, begins with a deep personal experience and connection. And that experience doesn’t have to be an other-worldly, mystical, or an overwhelming emotional/spiritual encounter. Knowing God begins with a genuine awareness of a caring and compassionate presence in our lives that is beyond anything we can comprehend or control.

Going Beyond the Abstract and Theoretical

At this point, I must admit that it’s unfair for me to simply talk about coming to know God without giving some concrete examples of what that experience might really be like. But I have found that one of the main problems with many of those concrete examples is that not many people are willing to “tell their story” unless they have a religious agenda, a desire for aggrandizement, or are trying to solicit funds for some kind of religious organization. So rather than copout and avoid this part of the topic, I want to include one God encounter story I am certain will not espouse any religious position or seek donations. It is the one I know best, because it’s mine.

It happened on a Sunday morning in the 1950’s when I was about seven years old. I was in church, a catholic church, and, as usual, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on in the service. In fact, I hardly ever paid much attention to the service since I didn’t understand Latin, especially when it was spoken with an Irish brogue. And I had sat on the same hard pews and seen those same old stained-glass windows on almost every Sunday of my life. I’m sure my mind was wandering off somewhere in the daydream land of most seven-year-old minds, when in the midst of my daydream, for no apparent reason, religious or otherwise, I suddenly felt a sense of something or someone all around me. I’d never that way felt before, but, for some reason, I wasn’t afraid or apprehensive. In fact, I felt warm, safe, and in a strange way peaceful. It felt a little like I was getting a huge loving hug from my grandmother, who was one of the most important people in my life. But that particular Sunday morning feeling went well beyond anything even my grandmother could have given. 

I can only say now I felt an awareness of a presence that even on my most eloquent day as an adult, I could never begin to adequately express in words. It was a wonderful experience, and after having reflected on it for the past sixty years, I’m convinced it was the greatest sense of contentment and security I’ve ever known. That morning is still the most profound thing I have ever experienced. I suppose that is why I can still remember it so vividly. 

Now the most significant aspect about the experience is that, in my seven-year-old mind, I concluded the something or someone all around me radiating such a sense of peace and well-being must be God. I’m not sure how I came to that conclusion, because no one had ever told me God was anything like this. In fact, what religious instruction I had known up until then suggested that meeting God was at best a frightening and more likely terrifying experience. This was because, as I had come to understand it, God didn’t seem to be very interested in meeting living people. In fact, I had been told that meeting God was what you did shortly after death for the purpose of determining the direction and climate of your eternal living accommodations. This was to be based upon how good or bad you had been during your life. However, I somehow knew this experience of love and security was God in the here and now and it simply felt right. I’m not sure how long the feeling lasted that morning, but I do remember my mother at some point during the experience shake me a little as she leaned over and told me to close my mouth, sit up straight, and pay attention to what was being said about Jesus. 

I assume, had I spent my seven early years in a Southern Baptist Church I might have thought what I was experiencing was the moment at which I “was saved.” I believe I would have been told this “salvation” was the very moment in which I entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and I would have also known I was supposed to come down to the front of the church at the altar call right after the long sermon. I have never quite understood what was supposed to happen at the front of the church other than a public profession of faith. But as a seven-year-old catholic who had never even been in any other kind of church, I knew nothing about “being saved,” and I had never seen anyone “come down front” in the church except to take communion (which I wasn’t allowed to do yet).  

In fact, up to that point I suppose I knew that Jesus Christ and God were somehow connected but I wasn’t sure how, and I was pretty sure he and I were not meant to be on any kind of personal terms. I do remember being told to talk to his mother if I wanted to get any kind of a message to him. But regardless of my lack of theological knowledge, that experience was the first time I knew God was real. And knowing God was real, at least for me, was the first step toward living a life that has any genuine sense of meaning, purpose, and happiness. I was fortunate enough to have that first experience of God when I was a child.

Strangely enough, since the experience happened in church, you might think that I would have made a connection between being in church and experiencing God. But I didn’t. For some reason the church was completely incidental to my feeling of God’s presence. Even as a child, I was sure what happened that morning simply was between God and me, instead of God and the church, or the church and me, or even God, the church, and me. I don’t mean for that to sound confusing or self-centered, I just never put the two together in a way that meant I had to be in church to experience God’s presence. 

In fact, now that I have reached an allegedly mature stage in my adult life, the church (any denomination) or any other form of institutional religion has become one of the last places where I might expect to encounter the presence of God. But more to the point, I find I am still driven to experience the loving and real presence of God as the ongoing center of my life, and focusing on that experience has made my life meaningful, fulfilling (at least at times), and more often than not, filled with a sense of joy and purpose. 

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