More than "Feeling the Presence"

Our friend was a minister's son. He attended church school, where he became rebellious at what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter he was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide - these calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him. Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the point of self-destruction.

 

One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friend's gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: "If there is a God, He certainly hasn't done anything for me!" But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: "Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?" While pondering the answer he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else:"Who are you to say there is no God?"

This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.

 

Thus was our friend's cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared. (AA, pg 56)

 

All of this talk about feelings and the "Presence of God" can create more problems than they actually solve.

 

If feelings is the barometer for faith, than a man's faith becomes weak tea, indeed.

 

For our feelings go up and down, but the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5: 5)

 

How we feel responds directly to what we are thinking, so the real question becomes -- what are you thinking about?

 

Paul tells us to "renew our minds", a transformation which takes place as we read God's Word and behold Jesus (2 Corinthians 3: 18), the Author and Finished of our faith (Hebrews 12: 2).

 

He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love.

 

In truth, anyone of us can stand in the presence of this Infinite love, when we by grace through faith accept that God sent His Son to die for us:

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"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)

 

and

 

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

 

"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

 

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

 

This grace that saves has been poured out on the entire world:

 

"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

 

"Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." (Titus 2: 11-12)

Presence of God --- ?

 

This kind of talk leads to the religious fanaticism of organized religion all over the world, whether on the surface tying in with the "Christian faith", or with any other "faith tradition".

 

I need more than the presence of God, I need to know and believe that God is, and that God is there, and that God is there for me:

 

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (1 John 4: 16)

 

All this talk about feelings and thoughts apart from the revealed Word of God create more problems for the man or woman who wants to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3:18)

 

John could not have written more simply -- when we know and believe in this love, that God sent His Beloved Son to die for us, then to dwell in God, and God to dwell in us, is as easy as the same faith that we live by.