Jesus We Talk About God Or “God”?

Jesus We Talk About God Or “God”?

Dear Thomas,

Before I begin answering your questions, I think it would be best to give you a perspective on why I believe in and relate to Jesus Christ the way I do. There are a lot of belief systems out there and an awful lot of variety within any particular belief system.

Thus, I first want to express not primarily a belief system but more of an affirmation of my own reality based relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

One of the difficulties in talking about the reality ofGod or in talking about having a relationship with Him is deciding how to put it into words. It reminds me of those times when a young adult says to his parent, “How do you know when you are in love?”

The answer is often, “When you are, you will know it.” For centuries much philosophical language has been developed around the idea of God. Even saying idea suggests a mental construct that develops into possible or faith-based truth claims about God.

Such claims have developed into a wide variety of belief systems, all of which have tried to establish meaning to life versus the alternative of meaninglessness.

Man seems inherently hardwired to think that there is something more than just himself. For me this is more than just human nature looking for meaning in our existence. I certainly believe that humanness should count for something and that humankind has intrinsic value.

Thus, religion in whatever form becomes the bridge from meaninglessness to meaningfulness and the path from mortality to some form of immortality. Outside of the personal relationship that I will talk about, a religion or in philosophical language a belief system is judged as a group effort to explain unseen causes and effects.

Religious beliefs are thought by many sociologists and other thinkers to be culturally devised and thus developed over time to guide the culture with its histories and social forms toward a perceived relationship with a transcendent being or beings with superhuman attributes.

If our humanness occurs by evolutionary process rather than the result of being created by design, our meaningfulncss and worth arc largely a finite product of chance and genetic variation.

Yet there is that inherent ability in humanness that can raise and answer questions as well as analyze ourselves, our environments, and our relationships.

Man performs acts of will, experiences love, defines good and evil, attaches meaning to feelings, experiences phenomena or miracles, and exercises a faith that surpasses the concrete. How can we explain that?

Some thinkers, past and present, have tried on ideas about God and concluded that He is only a human construct of one s mind that is commonlly accepted.

Wherein, many claim that He has failed them in that they desired an immediate response from the God or gods of their personal cultural understanding, but to no avail.

Other thinkers have embraced the idea ofGod as a way to explain why there is anything at all. When man can’t explain something, he wraps up the unexplainable into his ideas about God.

Thus, man’s ideas about God have been a moving target as man’s knowledge and understanding have changed throughout the ages.

Still, God remains as an abstract human thought concretely experienced. Thus, any knowing is a subjective, faith-based knowing in which God becomes knowable to us by experience and observation.

No one can prove God. The only possibility of experiencing Him is subjectively, though often this is objectively verified or logically deduced.

There are those who say, “I have tried God as a relational transcendent being, but it came to nothing.” Others claim, “When I thought about God as an infinite, omnipresent (ever-present), omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful) Creator God, it felt like abstract speculation.”

Still, others study the many varied religious beliefs and conclude that God is nothing more than a shifting superstition and that there really isn’t anything out there.

For many other people, however, life would be meaningless without a God, but is that reason to assert that God must exist? The existence of God can’t be based simply on the fact that we want it to be true.

When we feel we fail in our attempts to experience God personally, we become disappointed with God or anyone clse’s ideas about God.Yet the belief in a transcendent God echoes throughout human history.

There must be a way to explain and possibly experience God outside of another’s personal experience or testimony of spiritual connectedness.

There surely must be a way to explain how and why so many people believe in an invisible, inaudible God. It is here that the minds of philosophers and psychologists play.

But in their playing, it seems to me they are too often like someone talking about being a parent without ever having had a child or like single people who offer counseling about marriage though they have never had a spouse.

It is here, too, that theologians struggle to articulate. For the person to whom God has revealed Himself because of their free will choice, religion becomes the means of expressing that encounter.

For the person to whom God has not yet revealed Himself or the person who chooses not to see or believe in a revelation, religion may serve only an existential, communal, and social function. The lines between these too often get blurred.

Have philosophers and psychologists been able to explain away evidence of the notion that God reveals Himself to individual human beings? Yes, indeed. Philosophical and psychological theories have sought to unmake God.

Despite human need, desire, and introspection, despite a universal longing for meaning and purpose in life, many have concluded that human existence is insignificant, comes to nothingness, and is thus without any cosmic design or purpose.

This differs greatly from the believer’s conclusion that life has tremendous meaning precisely because of cosmic design and purpose through the One who stands behind it.

I think it is a tragic twist when meaninglessness becomes the appropriate understanding of life when God becomes nothing more than a myth in striving for meaning.

This God myth, however, is thought by others to be inappropriate when one is looking at the natural world and the uniqueness of humankind.

If there is no God, then what? If things are, what is the cause? Can there be such a thing as an uncaused cause? So even though God remains invisible and is thought to be silent, God still exists for many as the necessary framework for their own existence. The idea of God is the file into which they throw the unexplainable, the unknowable, and the mystical.

Is religious belief an imaginative invention of those who simply don’t have the moral courage to accept the fact that life is meaningless? There does seem to be a psychological impulse or need to have a God who will rescue us from hurt, pain, chaos, randomness, and meaninglessness.

Thus, the idea of God can be loaded with psychological baggage. Whether we want a god to be there or not in order to manage the brokenness and meaninglessness of life, it seems to some that we must invent a god.

An explanation for how and why people develop their beliefs about God fascinates philosophers and psychologists as much as it does theologians. Beyond that, though, they wonder, When the idea of God is accepted, what kind of god is God?

And if He does exist, how does He interact with humankind and us as individuals? Except for those who have thrown out the idea of God altogether, this has been an active query.

It is my hope that the totality of our correspondence will help answer some of the inevitable questions that arise when people are talking about God. Oftentimes quick short answers do not satisfy. Such questions about God and the answers might include the following:

• What is God up to? The short answer is that He is always working to have a continuous, long-term relationship with His creation.
• What is His purpose? The short answer is that with our total freedom, He wants us to express our love back to Him.
• Is God perfect or flawed? The short answer is that in every way He is perfect, even though we and our world are imperfect, broken, and flawed.
• If God is perfect, is that perfection static? The short answer is no, it is continuously active.
• Is His perfection dynamic with interaction and intention? The short answer is that it always is!
• Is God sovereign? The short answer is that He absolutely is!
• If God is sovereign and perfect, what happens to humans who are exposed to His perfection and sovereignty when they are neither perfect nor sovereign? The short answer is that when we are fully exposed to that sovereign perfection, we ultimately cease to exist unless we accept His grace, forgiveness, and love.
• Is God relational? The short answer is that He is continuous.
• If God is relational, how is He relational? The short answer is that He is relational in Spirit and truth.
• If human beings could be compared to a vast grove of aspen trees interconnected as one organism, would God relate to the whole grove, to individual trees, or to both? The short answer is both.
• If humans could be compared to a single mass structure of army ants considered as one living, interrelated organism, does God become personal to the whole army, as in the biblical Israel, or to individual ants like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Hosea, David, or John and Paul? The short answer is both.

The problem with this list of questions is that it poses another question. Can we just vicariously experience God, or do we have to experience Him personally in order to come to the truth about Him or ourselves in a relationship with Him?

Let me say that a vicarious experience of God is often the pathway to the personal experience. Both vicarious and personal experiences are different from simply having intellectual knowledge about God.

It seems to me that the human psyche works at giving meaning to our humanness. There are always those age-old questions. Where did we come from? What are we doing here? Where are we going? Such questions haunt the active mind.

It is more than the struggle to find meaning and overcome such feelings of separation, loneliness, alienation, apprehension, meaninglessness, or low self-worth. It is more than just an effort to go back to a place of safety and security, a place like the lost Eden of man’s beginning.

It is more than finding bliss in this world or fantasizing about the next. We are meant to seek a path of living that will help us actualize our humanness as God intended now and forever. The knowledge and experience of relating to God is the goal of human existence.

If this is our purpose, can we do this without believing in someone greater than ourselves? Is what man understands about God the means to his end, or is God the means to man’s ultimate end? I think the latter.

God is, as Scripture testifies, constantly descending, ever-present, always inviting, and continuously waiting for man to open up to His presence. If this is the case, then the question of who God is and who Jesus Christ is to us is the most important question of all.

For me, the deep questions boil down to this: Does a man go it alone in his known universe, or is there a redemptive, personal, relational, agape-loving Creator God who involves Himself in and with His creation?

If man constructs a god as a remedy for meaninglessness and as a comfortable alternative to going it alone, I would spell such a god with a lowercase g, for in that case god has become a means to man’s own ends.

How does a person determine whether his professed god is god or GW? As history shows, when god is a mental construct to combat meaninglessness, it can take many forms.

I don’t think we can prove God with a capital G. However, I do think there is another dimension of knowing beyond what we typically think of as provable. That way is experiencing through revelation.

But linear time puts distance between now and the past experiences of others that are often used to validate our own knowing. It is described in the passage of Scripture that says,

There are some things that can’t be proven, yet we know them to be true. I call these “truth realities.” Such truths go beyond psychologically induced beliefs. For example, if I tell you that my wife loves me, there is no way I can prove it to you by mere telling.

If you don’t know my wife and you have never seen or met her, you may doubt the truth of my words. Yet I know this truth and experience it. I can know and know that I know the reality of some experiences, even though the evidence is invisible or has been erased by time. That is a by-product of living in linear time that confounds our ability to provide evidence.

If we could live in one another’s moments, we could see that a lot of knowing is valid and neither speculation nor superstition. If we could stop time or move back in time to examine past events, we might well find that much of what is considered religious superstition is in fact true. But linear time does not allow such exploration, so we are left to judge based only on the footprints left from another time.

When Abram heard a voice in the night, when Moses heard instructions out of a burning bush, when the apostle Paul was changed on the Damascus road when Jesus experienced the voice of God at His baptism with John the Baptist at the Jordan River, and when Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection-all who experienced these events were profoundly transformed.

Their lives were forever altered. The historical footprints of those events were not experiences that have altered world history. Yet those captured on video with surround sound and high-definition color where we can study them frame by frame to determine what really happened.

Neither do we have any forensic evidence to study. Furthermore, we don’t have the ability to interrogate the persons involved or subject them to psychological analysis.

Why did Thomas doubt, Peter deny, and Judas betray? We can only conjecture. For some, the passing of linear time has left the doors of doubt and speculation wide open concerning the revelations of God and what they mean.

As individuals, we can also experience events or see revelations in nature that tell us about God. Once the event passes or the wonderment of nature subsides, the experience remains as a personal footprint for us to contemplate its truth and its meaning.

The footprints that remain go through the filters of our minds, leaving us to make choices about what to do with them. Hopefully, we don’t fall into what the apostle Paul was talking about in Romans 1:20-23 where he says,

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images.

But not all take that turn. There are those who come face-to-face with an experience of God’s revelation and choose to honor it. These are free choices, yet they have significant and life-changing consequences.

Those who choose not to give credence to a God who reveals Himself are led to the understanding that life is ultimately meaningless, just a biological accident in which they search for the means to make the most of it and in the process often create their own god (spelled with a small g).

Those who choose to give credence to a God who reveals Himself and honor that revelation find themselves led to a connection with a gracious, loving, relational, transcendent God.

It is a discovery that life in relationship with Him has purpose and meaning. It is the discovery that there is a Creator God who is doing something.

And we as individuals can participate in that something if we choose. It is the difference between a god construct as man’s means to an end and God as the means to man’s end. It is a reflection of a bumper sticker that reads, “God is dead. —Nietzsche. Nietzsche is dead God.”

The self-revealing God I talk about throughout my letters is one who leaves footprints over time in people’s lives. He has certainly left them in mine! Let me tell you a story about a personal experience that has left one of those footprints in time, one that has had a profound impact on my life.

If you assume I do not lie and that the experience was absolutely real in every aspect, then you get to make a choice. You can choose to believe it was only a psychological or psychosomatic phenomenon misinterpreted because of a predisposition on my part.

You can remain firm in your conviction that the God I reference and experienced is the lowercase god. Or you can choose to believe that this was an encounter with God as He chose to reveal Himself to me at that time, in that way, and in that event. This is the story of that experience.

The summer before my senior year in college, I had the privilege of obtaining a summer scholarship at a Christian-sponsored summer camp. I had the responsibility of leading the boys in my cabin (a different set of eight every two weeks) to a relationship with Jesus, but to my understanding, I was nothing short of a failure in reaching that goal.

All the other camp leaders had some of the boys in their cabins come forward to profess their belief in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior at Friday night campfire services, but none of my boys ever did.

At this time in my life, I knew that as soon as my senior year in college was over, I would be drafted into the army for a two-year tour of duty, the Vietnam War staring right at me.

I could opt to go on for a master’s degree, but I wasn’t sure what area I would study. If I instead went into the army and completed my two years of service, I still did not know what I would do for a career after my discharge. Though my undergraduate degree would be in teaching, l had discovered that the classroom didn’t appeal to me.

To top it all off* my college sweetheart had broken off our relationship when she decided to go overseas. With li all this uncertainty in my life, I felt I was sinking into a black hole of unknowns.

I felt like a failure, all alone, isolated, scared of life, and very depressed. I felt like giving up on everything. My conclusion was that I just wasn’t making it in life, I knew I needed help. 1 needed someone to guide me through the big issues of life.

I was plagued with questions. How could I serve God when my serving seemed to be fruitless? How would I now look for and choose a life mate? What would I do about further education and the war? What should I do concerning a career?

I certainly believed that God answered my prayers. I had heard and read the stories. I had read enough Scripture to know that God had often honored men with His presence and answered them in that still, small voice.

In fact, with the prophets of old, He had outright talked to them. I asked myself, Why couldn’t He talk to me? After all, I had declared Him my Lord, and I thought I was answering His call on my life. Yet life didn’t seem to be going well. What was wrong? I needed some answers.

The questions continued to roll through my mind. Should I forget my sweetheart overseas, go on with my life, and look for another? Was it really over? I knew that I was in love with her, but she had left and given no indication when she might be coming back.

Should I go on with my education and hold off on my army tour of duty? What career path should I follow? I needed to know the answers to these questions now, for each decision would be life-altering, but I just wasn’t up to it. I knew I had free will, but what was God’s will for my life? Did He even have one?

I thought it was time to press the Lord for answers. I wanted real and specific answers to each of my questions. It seemed rational to conceive of God talking to me in some form. I knew I believed that if I persisted in prayer, He would honor me.

So I decided at dusk on an evening between camp groups to go to a beautiful spot beside a river about half a mile from camp. I sat down on a boulder, listened to t lie water rushing over the rocks for a few moments, and then began my prayer. I thanked Him for coming into my life so many years earlier. I talked through the many experiences and answered prayers of my past.

I then audibly poured out to the Lord everything that was on my mind all my failures, my dashed hopes, my fears, and questions about my future.

I let the Lord know that I knew He could speak however He wanted as long as it was now! I just didn’t know what to make of my tomorrows, and I didn’t like the prospects of them, judging from my yesterdays.

After my long prayer and affirmation of His faithfulness, I opened my eyes and looked around. But there was only silence, nothing more.

I waited, but still, there was nothing, just more silence. How was the Lord going to speak to me? I didn’t know, as there was only continued silence. Now what?

Again I went into prayer, seeking answers for the things that were on my heart, vowing that I would not leave until He spoke to me and gave me some answers to my questions. Again I opened my eyes.

I waited, but again there was nothing, just silence. The sound of the rushing water still filled my ears, and the tall majestic pine trees still lined the mountain slopes to the river’s edge.

Higher up, large granite cliffs glistened from the light of the moon that was now popping in and out of clouds drifting by. It was getting dark, but I didn’t care. I wanted answers.

I went into prayer again, and again there was nothing, only silence. I repeated that process for some time. Each time I asked the Lord to answer my questions, and each time there was nothing but silence—a terrible, loud silence. What was I going to do? Each time I prayed, there was no answer only silence

I could not—I would not—give up, so I prayed again. At the end of my prayer, something took place that altered my life forever. Jesus did speak to me in a way that I will never forget. He used my own voice to speak out loud to me.

This is what He said: “Matt, look around you. If I created the rocks you are sitting on, the water that is rushing by, the trees, the mountains, the moon, the clouds and stars above, and if I created you also, don’t you think I take care of you? Remember, your responsibility is to live in a relationship with Me one day at a time.”

That was it. That was all He said. He didn’t answer any of my specific questions, yet I knew that He had spoken to me. It was a “knowing that you know,’’ a little like the apostle Paul’s experience on the Damascus road (see Acts 9). Was this experience consistent with the way God communicates?

Those outside belief and looking in might conclude that it was only a psychological anomaly brought on by a psychological need. Those who have experienced such events of revelation would conclude otherwise.

Were my perceptions and conclusions of the experience in error? We faced that time problem again. I can’t take you back to the event and let you see, hear, and experience it for yourself.

And even if I could take you back, would your senses perceive the event in the same way that I did? What emotional bias would you bring to the scene? Would there be a difference for you as a casual observer?

I would have to say that there would be a difference just as the apostle Paul’s experience was different from that of his companions on the Damascus road. And I don’t know how many heard God speaking to Jesus at His baptism,

The experience was mine. It was personal, and it was real. Again I remember distinctly, “Matt, look around you. If I created the rocks you are sitting on, the water that is rushing by, the trees, the mountains, the moon, the clouds and stars above, and if I created you also, don’t you think that I can take care of you? Remember, your responsibility is to live in a relationship with Me one day at a time.”

With that message impressed on my mind, I waited a few moments in contemplation. Then with tears running down my face, I thanked the Lord for honoring me with His presence and speaking to me so directly and vividly. I got up and started back to camp.

By now it was getting dark. There was not much moonlight anymore, and I had forgotten to bring a flashlight. Additionally, a number of bears frequented the camp area, always looking for food.

I was alone. It was dark in the woods, and I really couldn’t see the trail leading back to camp. My apprehension level was a six when I heard something rustling in the woods close to me. I froze.

Alarmed and frightened with my heart pumping furiously, I felt my emotions skyrocketing to a ten! I couldn’t see anything at first. What was I going to do? There was no place to run, and it was really dark. What was that noise near me?

Suddenly I saw something in the trail just ahead of me. It was a fox with spots of almost-white molting fur on his sides and tail. I had seen him around camp a few times. I was only about ten yards in front of me.

After a few moments, the animal turned and slowly walked away from me until he was just about out of sight. Then he stopped. I stepped forward, but the lie didn’t move, staying on the trail as though he was waiting for me.

I stopped when I was again about ten yards from him. Again he walked slowly down the trail until he was almost out of sight, and again I cautiously followed. The process repeated itself all the way to the point where I could see an outside light on one of the camp cabins.

As soon as I had a hint of where I was and could make my way back to camp, the fox turned and disappeared into the woods. “Matt, don’t you think that I can take care of you?” resounded in my heart and mind.

When I think back on this experience, what amazes me is that I had just had an epiphany on the rock moments before, yet I immediately forgot the words God had spoken to me. Fear gripped me, and my emotions took over.

But still, God was gracious beyond belief. He used the fox to emphasize to me that what He had just said was true. He could indeed take care of me. I have never forgotten that experience.

In that life-changing encounter, I did not receive even one answer to my questions. But I did receive a promise that no matter what happened, the Lord would take care of me.

How much more valuable that answer has been throughout my life than what I asked for! The revelation, subjective in the words, was made objective by the fox. Was that religious superstition to the point of a psychosomatic phenomenon? Not a chance!

I suspect that the apostle Paul would likely agree. The words spoken to him on that Damascus road may have been for his ears only, yet the scales of blindness and their removal a few days later objectified the reality of that experience.

The angel’s words to Mary were certainly objectified in the birth of Jesus. The words of warning to Adam and Eve were certainly objectified to them as well as to all of us throughout the ages.

As is so often the case, an individual’s experience of God revealing Himself is given through a subjective experience that is affirmed by a likewise personal, objectifying experience.

Think of Moses, Daniel, Gideon, Sampson, or Hosea. Remember the disciples’ many experiences. Recall Peter’s denial of Christ and the subsequent crowing of the rooster and Mary’s encounter at Jesus’ tomb on the Sunday morning after His crucifixion.

To anyone outside the experience, the event could be labeled as superstition, folklore, or speculation. But to the person inside the experience, it was a footprint of a subjective revelation of God affirmed by a physical, objective experience.

I wish I could take those who stand outside of belief in such experiences back in time to that rock beside the river. But I can only offer the footprint of the experience. It is for each person to choose what to do with the telling of my experience.

That is likewise true for all the events of God revealing Himself as expressed throughout Scripture and by persons of faith throughout the ages. That seems to be the way it is in talking about God. We are free to choose what we believe. And that choice always involves a level of uncertainty and demands an act of faith.

Yet there is ample evidence to make the choice for God spelled with a capital G. Making this choice, however, does not come without facing some issues that result from that choice. The idea that we are thinking, of living human beings who must determine what to do with our lives suggests a certain autonomy.

Choosing God, who is ever-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful, could become an obstacle or threat to that autonomy. If we recognize that He is our Creator and we are His creation and if we acknowledge that He gives meaning and purpose to our lives, choosing to be in a relationship with Him can pose a real threat to our autonomy, living life any way we want.

Embracing God with a capital G also raises the threat of accountability. Just what have we done with this life that has been given to us? That can cause a very real threat of apprehension, low self-worth, or even guilt if we feel we have not measured up. If we want to do our own thing with impunity free of judgment, the last thing we want is to confront the reality of a holy, righteous, self-existing God.

Consequently for the atheist and agnostic, disbelieving in God often seems to be a better alternative. Or at the very least they face the pressure to make god spelled with a small g into a form of their choosing.

The pressure is mitigated only by the answers to questions about the nature and character of God. Again what kind of God is God spelled with a capital G1 It is here that I will try to give reasoned answers in This Jesus We Talk About.

As a Christian believer, I make certain truth claims about the nature and character of God as I have understood and experienced Him. The atheists and agnostics often move to the opposite side of these truth claims. For example, here are some of my truth claims and their opposites.

Truth claim: God exists.

Opposite: God does not exist.

Truth claim: Yahweh was the God of Old Testament Israel.

Opposite: Yahweh, the God of Old Testament Israel, is only a myth and part of Jewish folklore.

Truth claim: Jesus Christ was divine.

Opposite: Jesus Christ was not divine, merely a man.

Truth claim: Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead.

Opposite: The resurrection claim is a myth arising from vested interests.

Truth claim: Jesus was born of a virgin.

Opposite: Jesus was an illegitimate child.

Truth claim: The Bible is God’s primary history of and communication with humanity.

Opposite: The Bible is a myth, allegory, and folklore written for self-serving ends.

Truth claim: Prayer is real communication with the divine.

Opposite: Prayer is merely self-talk to subconscious minds to find solutions for personal desires.

Truth claim: Natural science affirms intelligent design by a Creator God.

Opposite: Natural science disproves God; there is no need for Him.

Truth claim: God creates man out of a desire for companionship.

Opposite: Man creates God for psychological reasons.

Truth claim: The eternal, self-existing God is the first cause of all things.

Opposite: Spontaneous generation explains the existence of
everything.

Truth claim: The fullest discoveries of God’s creativity are found scientifically.

Opposite: God is scientifically useless.

Truth claim: God reveals Himself.

Opposite: God is unknowable.

Truth claim: God demonstrated Himself in Jesus Christ.

Opposite: God cannot be demonstrated.

Truth claim: Revelation affirms or corrects reason and serves as an important basis for belief.

Opposite: Reason is superior to revelation. Revelation is biased through the filter of the mind.

Truth claim: God establishes the fullest nature of our humanness in the agape ethic.

Opposite: People postulate God to ensure a meaningful social ethic.

Truth claim: By and through God we live, move, and have being.

Opposite: There is no ultimate meaning to life.

Truth claim: It is impossible to prove the nonexistence of God.

Opposite: It is impossible to prove the existence of God.

Truth claim: Man has the opportunity for redemption and immortality because of Jesus Christ.

Opposite: Man is destined to nothingness.

Truth claim: Christianity is based on other-centered relationships.

Opposite: All religion, including Christianity, is based on fear.

Truth claim: The origin of the Judalc-Christian religion is a matter of God acting in history.

Opposite: The origin of religion is a matter of psychology and philosophy.

Truth claim: Man is created for God’s ends.

Opposite: God is created for man’s ends.

Truth claim: God is love.

Opposite: God is indifferent.

If a person’s understanding of reality is the collection of the opposites listed previously, then the conclusion that life is finite and meaningless and that man as a conscious living being is destined to nothingness is a reasonable conclusion.

If, on the other hand, a person’s understanding of reality is the collection of Christian truth claims, then the conclusion that life is sacred, full of meaning and purpose, and intimately connected with the divine becomes not just a reasonable conclusion but an experienced reality.

The question can be asked why some of us believe the truth claims while others do not. The alternative to believing them and ignoring God altogether is to develop a construct of god spelled with a small g that fits our needs.

If that is the case, we can perform in a manner to please our created god and find our meaning through our performance with its perceived temporal and future rewards.

So how do we explain an experienced reality in a way that can be meaningful and provide a pathway to another’s experience of the reality of God spelled with a capital G? Let me use this silly illustration: Think about the connectedness to a beloved created by a passionate (other-centered) kiss.

The intimacy and connectedness to the beloved exist outside and beyond any thoughts or study of a kiss. We can study the history of a kiss, analyze the psychology and physiology of a kiss, observe the results of a passionate kiss, develop theories on why people engage in passionate kissing or discuss the different methods of passionate kissing.

We can fantasize and speculate about a passionate kiss, even practice kissing on a mirror or a balloon. We can even engage in pseudo-passionate kissing and consider it nothing more than a way to establish meaning, eliminating the sense of meaninglessness and aloneness.

We can be a bit dull, uneducated, or poor and still experience the connectedness to a beloved with a passionate kiss. We can also be very bright, well-educated, and quite rich in material wealth and similarly experience the connectedness to a beloved with a passionate kiss.

In other words, it doesn’t really matter what the theories are, who does the theorizing, or how creatively someone expresses thoughts about the passionate kiss of a beloved. A kiss is an experiential reality of connectedness to another.

It is both a subjective and objective experience. The connectedness that results is by mutual choice. It is one person revealing to another the language of “I love you.”

As silly as this illustration might be, it yields insight into a God who reveals Himself in love. It reveals a God who is passionate about His connectedness with humankind and each of us as individuals.

It reflects the God who comes to a man in Scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ. It displays the God who comes in the voice of answered prayer and in the evidence of a changed life.

It reflects the God who comes in words and actions for those who experience Him in reason exercised by faith. It affirms the God who continues to come to man for the purpose of love experienced by those who will respond. But that response is always a choice.

It can be a curious thing to be explained, or it can be a reality of connectedness to a self-revealing, eternal, holy, transcendent, redeeming, gracious, loving God who continually descends to us and says in effect,

In conclusion, for me, there are experienced truth claims within Christianity that affirm a God spelled with a capital G, who reveals Himself and comes to man with good news, as opposed to a god of necessity to give meaning to the otherwise meaninglessness and ultimate nothingness of life.

For me, it is about the God who comes to man and says, “Look around you. If I created the rock you are sitting on, the water that is rushing by, the trees, the mountains, the moon, the clouds and stars above, and if I created you also, don’t you think I can take care of you? Remember, your responsibility is to live in a relationship with Me one day at a time.”

So what is true living? It is to understand and respond to this God through His revelation and His work. I hope that you will be open to the God, who loves and reveals Himself. How He chooses to do that is always an individual and personal experience between you and God.

The when and how is determined by your willingness and readiness and His working within time and circumstances. And His revelation is usually not in the way you expect.

If you are willing and ask God to reveal Himself to you, it will happen. And when it does, you will know that God is spelled with a capital G and is not a god of your own making spelled with a small g.

Your friend,
Matt