CapeConversation

This past week we did our second session focusing on intimacy with Godde. Though Godde meets with us in a variety of ways we’re spending some time exploring the immediacy of Godde and what that looks like and means for us as a community.

We put forward a central question wrapped up in generalisations:

• Put a room full of non-Christians together. Tell them that Godde speaks and acts in the present. Share some stories. More likely than not they’ll be very keen to experience Godde.
• Put a room full of Christians together. Tell them the same thing and share some stories. More likely than not they’ll get defensive, argue that “Of course we all experience Godde in our own way”. More often than not they won’t be interested in experiencing Godde.

I’ve often found this to be rather odd behaviour.

We spent a bit of time unpacking this – not in the abstract but personally as people involved in a conversation around that topic.

• The first time someone experiences Godde starkly contrasts to what came before. A more integrated life with Godde makes for less significant constrasts.
• We can’t go back to our “first love”. There’s no going back in life.
• A long-term relationship makes for ups and downs, seasons of being close and seasons of being distant, times of good communication and times where we’re wrapped up in ourselves.
• As time goes on we realise that Godde remains a mystery, remains distinct, and remains unknown.
• We experience Godde generally and specifically, Godde being around and Godde communicating directly with us.

Pushing the point a bit I suggested that those who self-identify as not knowing Godde clearly push forward toward knowing Godde. Those who self-identify themselves with knowing Godde happily push forward toward not knowing Godde. I put forward the following question, “Are we happy and content with Godde being generally present or are we keen on experiencing Godde as direct, immediate participant in our activities.”

It would seem that we are keen to pursue Godde, to hear and experience Godde directly and to integrate this into our activities.

AW Tozer said the following:

We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by anotehr cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilties of both can be explored… God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions…

How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of ‘accepting’ Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the BIble) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no BIble-taught Christian ever believed otherwise… In the mids of this chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, ‘O God, show me your glory.‘ They want to tast, to touch with hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.

May we grow in our appetite and desire for Godde. I don’t say “hunger” for that would imply that Godde does not meet us. May our emerging spirituality be characterised by a rediscovery of Godde’s Person.

We all long to be a community committed to intimacy with Godde. We want to be free to express our desire for Godde. We want to be participate in the creative sharing our love for each other and Godde. We want to be the kind of community where Godde, in turn, unashamedly saturates us in His love and affection. A community where Godde speaks and is an direct and active participant in all our activities.

We drew the session to a close spending some time waiting on Godde to speak to us – and S/He did. It was great having Godde contributing more directly.