An Experience of God

A couple weeks ago we had our spring Intern Cluster Retreat for all the interns in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and one from South Dakota.  We spent the day talking about staying renewed and refreshed in ministry (scintillating, I know).

One of the sessions we had was about when this year we've been able to think about God in a new way.  And, as we were going around the circle, one person stopped the conversation and took it in a different direction.

"I'm less interested in thinking about God in a new way and more interested in experiencing God in new ways."

That got me thinking...about thinking.

After all, we spend so much time in seminary thinking about God that I wonder how much we miss out on experiencing God fully.  Or making note of new experiences of God.  Or considering how people we preach to and people we pastor to are experiencing God.

some people experience God in candles and such

I'm part of a generational shift in which experience is a legitimate and celebrated form of knowing.  I have experienced Grace to be true in my life.  I have experienced the love of God when I couldn't love myself.  I've experienced the work of God when I can't bring myself to hate people I liked to hate a lot.

All of these experiences, plus all the others I have on a daily basis, lead me to know God.  And of course I can think about those experiences, but thinking about them doesn't make them more or less true to me.  I think the primary way in which we can know God, in a postmodern context, is through experiencing God in all ways...ways as old as the table of bread and wine to ways as new as Facebook pastoral care.

How have you experienced God lately?