A major question I’m noticing from first-time clients, is can I trust experience of God?

• For some, it arises from a conflict of priorities, i.e. what is more important, experience of God or study of the Scriptures?

• For others this issue rises in wondering how the Scriptures ought to inform relationship with the Holy Spirit, especially in devotional/worship/prayer times where experience comes to the forefront?

• For others, this issue arises in their theology of sin and humanity—if we’re fallen, how can we trust our hearts (emotions) or our mind (thoughts) of God? Didn’t Jeremiah say the heart is wicked and sick?

There is something true about this desire to be careful - God’s word encourages us to “watch over our hearts with due diligence.” But as a Spiritual Director and Pastor, I am concerned also about an underlying skepticism in our culture of the emotional-spiritual life. Dallas Willard says it this way:

This skepticism has slowly leaked into the church and infected her posture toward truth and experience. This desire to “protect”—whether it’s our theology, scriptural authority, morality, compassion, justice, etc.—can actually undercut the “rivers of living water” that Jesus promised would flow out of His disciples. The problem is that the rivers of Living Water arrive by faith alone…that means if we our mark of maturity is skepticism or doubt, then we may not be as mature as we think.

Jesus often calls the disciples into faith. His whole earthly ministry took these underqualifed doubters and taught them in theory and practice how to be like Jesus. But even unto the end, they failed and scattered. It was only at the infilling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost when their life and faith took on the level that we call normal in the early church. And that faith—a gift of the Holy Spirit—is where we will find the rivers of living water too.

We too often relate to the pre-pentecost disciples as the standard of faith and maturity in the Christian life, when Jesus is calling us to relate to Him as our standard. Don’t compare ourselves to them—compare ourselves to Him.

Jesus says “Students are not greater than their teacher, and slaves are not greater than their master,” which means we’re not going to beat Jesus, but we better expect and lean into being like Jesus (Matthew 10:24, NLT).

Jesus even ends the Sermon on the Mount with “Be Holy as I am Holy,” this is the daunting task of Christianity, but let’s not make it seemingly more possibly by lowering the standard from Jesus to James, John, or Judas. It’s just not what Jesus had in mind when He lived and ministered on earth.

This issue of skepticism and popular doubt arises from living in a post-christian culture, where our language and history are Christianized, but modern flow of faith and morality is not. We’re building up or moral or theological mores so as not to become syncretized with a patchwork culture…however this very act is reactive formation. This conscious goal to stand on our convictions (a mental work) can unconsciously sabotage our hearts and create suspicion of the God who works in all circumstances, all seasons, and all places.

In an effort to not be deceived, we can accidentally cut of the source of our life. Throwing the baby out (the spiritual life in God) with the mixed-bathwater (the possibility of self-deception).

There may be multiple reasons we experience a “blockage” in our spiritual lives (Spiritual Direction is a great place to explore this), and this mis-trust of experience is just one area we might face.

The funny thing is, the Bible never ever endorses skepticism or cynicism in either the Old or New Testament. Often it warns or condemns this vice now advertised as a virtue. the Bible does encourage good theology and pure morality, but these are the inflow and outflow of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

We don’t have to defend God to ourselves, God Himself is able to ministry the truth to our hearts and minds—that's what’s amazing about the Holy Spirit being the third person of the Trinity. He’s God in us. And no matter what we’re walking through or feeling, it’s good to trust that His authority is present and He is always at work.

It’s seems strange, but as Christians, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, witnesses to the Living God, we can also be the most cynical about the experience of God in our daily lives.

Jesus says we will be His “witnesses”—what are we to witness if we have little to no experience of His presence?

• How much can we actually trust the inner workings of our hearts?

• How much can we trust the “nudges and voices” that run through bodies or minds throughout the day?

• How do we connect our experiences of God to Reason and Truth?

• Is their room in my theology for God to move in my body, my habits, my literal waking, sleeping, and working?

• And is there a place for the traditions and history of the broader Church to influence and shape our experience of God?
  
  

We’ll explore some of these questions in the next couple posts. But know at the beginning, the theological method (the assumptions about the world, humanity, God, etc.) we bring to the Scriptures directly effects our theological conclusions. The assumptions we bring in direct our answers, and to the degree we’re predisposed or misaligned, our biblical answers pop out as self-fulfilled prophesies.

The goal is not to avoid having presuppositions, but to, as best as possible, have True presuppositions. And this means doing a little bit of philosophical reflection:

• For example, if I hold to naturalism—the belief that God cannot work through and within Nature itself—and I study the Bible, I likely will assume the historic authors inaccurately interpreted unexplainable natural phenomena as supernatural events, or acts of God, and might search for clues in the writing for natural explanations that correlate with a “closed” universe.

• Or perhaps, if struggle with self-condemnation, when the Bible speaks of denying oneself and taking up the cross—I will be predisposed to interpret these as sage advice for the inner life, and justify to denouncing having any desires at all.

• Or if the transcendent, spiritual life, that is engaged through human emotions and touches our human spirit, is my understanding of the firmest ground for reality, then I may easily lift quotes or powerful spiritual experiences in scripture from their historical-physical context, and lose the grounded reality of the Scriptures and God’s involvement in real history.

There are countless more. What do these stir up for you?

I hope you can begin to see how these presumptions can impact the lens we bring to the Scriptures and to our world. And how that lens effects our lives, our connection to God, and our relationships with others and the world around us.

Consider with me:

• What would it be like to explore the roots that can influence the ways you think about the world?

• What comes up for you when you think about your basic presumptions about God, humanity, and Scripture?

• What things are a few core things you hold to about God, the universe, humanity, and humanities origins, and the way forward?

Check out our upcoming posts for more on Is Integration Possible?