My friend Mollie was sitting in a grocery store parking lot. She was upset. She was mad at the universe. In the midst of her rage, God spoke to her.
According to Mollie, it was undeniable, almost audible. God responded to her questions. God comforted her and cooled her rage. She said that she seemed to just know that the “God-voice” was Jesus.
Here’s the thing; Mollie was not a Christian. She would not align herself with any religion. She believed that the spiritual encompassed all things. And yet “Jesus” spoke to her … in the most tangible way.
Elusive presence
As I researched for my latest book, I asked hundreds of people about their life with God. Specifically, I wanted them to talk about God’s tangible presence. The vast majority of people are not like Mollie. God’s tangibility, his “felt presence,” seems elusive to them.
The vast majority of people are not like Mollie. God’s tangibility, his “felt presence,” seems elusive to them.
For most of the church people I’ve talked to, the whole of their personal and tangible life with God amounts, by and large, to some combination of the following:
- Some emotionally infused life experiences that are hard to separate from the common human life: birth of children, moments of success, weddings or celebrative events (like concerts, conferences, or church services).
- Some indirect encounters with God through things that seem to evidence the divine: witnessing mountains, oceans, sunsets, acts of goodness, healings, looking into the eyes of a child, etc.
- Maybe a few events of circumstance or serendipity that defy explanation. For instance, my friend Jeff has a story about a flock of birds and another about a Zippo lighter that are, for him, cherished evidences of God in his life.
- And then, if they are lucky, they may have a few accounts of direct (tangible) encounter with God (most often separated by long silences) that are all but impossible to dismiss.
Beyond our verbiage
We all have an unspoken theology. This unspoken theology is often starkly different than our declared creed. But this unspoken (maybe even to ourselves) theology is what truly governs our life with God.
Assuming that someone has had some combination of the experiences listed above, they have probably cobbled those moments together into their “personal doctrine of God’s presence.” This is their unspoken theology. They may not even have the vocabulary to accurately describe this theology, but it is there all the same (just ask any counselor about their client’s true theology of God’s presence, God’s parenthood, or God’s provision. Then ask them how deeply hidden that theological programming often lies.)
The dissonance between our “unspoken theology” and our “declared creed” is the playground of spiritual disconnect and pain.
The dissonance between our “unspoken theology” and our “declared creed” is the playground of spiritual disconnect and pain.
Unfortunately, well-meaning religious leaders often contribute to this dissonance. We may preach promises to parishioners (declared creed) that God may not deliver in their spiritual life. Here are five damaging messages propagated by many pulpits about God’s tangible presence:
God shows up all the time. We don’t even realize how much this message fills our churches. I think there must be a class in seminary that teaches future pastors to begin sermons with the statement, “I was talking to God this week and God told me to preach on…” Or “This week I received a message from the Lord.” Our worship training is similar, offering words like “God is close this morning” or “Feel God” and lyrics like: “God walks with me” or “Draw me near.” Now I am not saying that there is not a real sense of truth in these sentiments that saturate so many of our sacred Sunday services, but if they are not balanced and explained, they can leave parishioners with the impression that God shows up tangibly every day, at least for the spiritually “mature.” As a result, many people feel outside the real Christian club, because their lives don’t feel like the Sunday rhetoric.
One size fits all. God is the most dynamic and diverse Being and we have been created in that image. In Gary Thomas’ book, Sacred Pathways, he identifies nine different and equally valid spiritual temperaments. Some of your congregants may be activists, others intellectuals or ascetics. Church leaders need to avoid the pitfall of codifying their own personal spiritual temperament. It may preach well, but there is no one way to practice spirituality. There are no “5 steps to a dynamic Christian life.” There are also thousands of indirect ways we communicate that one way to experience God is better than all others—and those indirect messages get caught in people’s souls.
Beware of privilege categories. I talked to one influential denominational leader and he said to me, “If anyone ever doubts God’s tangible presence, I tell him or her to fly with me to (a distant city) to a church service where they will meet God.” Really? To meet God requires the capacity to buy a plane ticket? Now, before we judge him too harshly, remember that Sunday church is a privilege. A five-day workweek is a luxury for many. So is having an accessible church—or even a “talented” church, an “entertaining” church, or a “cool” church.
God shows up all the time in the Bible. Decades ago, I heard a respected seminary professor who said that across the hundreds of generations in the Bible, there are only three generations wherein one could say God’s supernatural presence was normative: Moses’ generation, Elijah/Elisha and Jesus/early church.
There was generation after generation that experienced God as silent.
There are certainly other times when God shows up dramatically, but he says that there was only three seasons in which we can say his presence was “normative.” Now, this professor had an anti-Pentecostal axe to grind and you or I may want to add some other biblical seasons to his short list, however, it is hard to deny his point. There was generation after generation that experienced God as silent. In the book of Acts, there are tangible God encounters in almost every chapter… up until chapter 10. Then, from chapters 11-28, there is a significant drop-off in God-interactions. And this drop-off continues until John on Patmos.
God promises to be a tangible presence. Jesus promised that God would walk along side of us (John 14: 16-17), but never promises that that companionship will be sensory or tangible. In fact, the walk-along-side Holy Spirit hardly, if ever, speaks in the Bible. Can you think of a verse that directly quotes the Spirit’s voice?
Finally, when we present God’s tangible presence as normative, we do a disservice to the doctrine of desperation. This is where we can really learn from our non-Western brothers and sisters. Persecution theology, poverty theology, and beatitude theology have much to teach us. In middle-class America, our theology of God’s presence is often fueled by comfort, entertainment, self-dependence, and convenience. In contrast, there is a reason why Jesus compassionately critiqued the man who stored up enough “for many years” (Luke 14:16-21) and why he made an example of the poor in spirit, the mourners, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and the persecuted.
I’m not suggesting we ignore the many promises in Scripture that assurance us of God’s abiding presence. God has promised to “never leave or forsake” us (Heb. 13:5). But that’s his real presence—not his felt presence. The truth is we can’t guarantee that people will always sense God’s presence. And I fear we have created a culture of pretending in the church. Our religious rhetoric doesn’t match our real-life experience with God. And that sets up us, and others, for dangerous disappointments.
Tony Kriz is a writer and church leader from Portland, Oregon. This article was based on Kriz’s new book, ALOOF: Figuring Out Life with a God who Hides (Nelson, 2015).
