Encounter with God

We have inherited, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, a wonderful gift -- the Gift of Faith.  For many people, "faith" means "creed," or "what we believe."  But that is not the tradition we have inherited.  From the time of Abraham, who is called "The Father of Faith," to this day, faith does not at all mean "what we believe," but Whom we have met. 

First comes the encounter with a living Person, a dialog which changes one's life.  Afterwards comes "what we believe" from that encounter.  Abraham, who was living in a pagan culture that worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, somehow heard the Voice of Yahweh, who told him to "leave his people and his father's house and come to a land I will show you."  Abraham had to follow that Voice.  On the way to he-knew-not-where, daily he built an altar of prayer so that he could enter into the dialog with the Voice that continued to lead him.  He expected God to speak to him, and his expectations were not disappointed.

Today, many people "believe" many things -- but they do not expect God to speak to them.  Indeed, they are even offended at the thought that the great Almighty would take notice of us.  We have creeds, but we do not have faith.

Faith is meeting God, the eternally faithful, gracious, loving, merciful God Who is willing to share with us all that He is and has.  Once we have that encounter, our faith in Him grows.  We know He is with us on the way, no matter what befalls us.  We come to expect God's action in our life.  We base our whole life on the goodness of the One Who Loves us and the knowledge that He is leading us somewhere, that our history and the history of the world has meaning.  His faithfulness to us gives us the security to let go of the past, to be insecure in the moment, and to look forward to what comes next. 

If the Scriptures do not speak to us today, it is because we have not yet met the Lord behind the Scriptures.  If God is not speaking to us today, it is because we have not yet entered into dialog with Him.  In The Great Themes of Scripture, Richard Rohr writes this:

We get what we expect from God.  When we have new ears to hear with, the Lord can speak a new word to us.  When we no longer expect anything new or anything more from God, we are like nonbelievers, atheists for all practical purposes.

In this moment, the Lord wants to speak something new to you.  Not to believe that, not to hope in that, is to have lost faith in the power of the Word of God.

How do we begin the dialog?  For some of us, it is a cry of desperation:  Help!  I need YOU!

For some, it is a quiet movement in the soul, a yearning, a hunger that opens us toward being satisfied.

For others, it is a quest:  Show me Your Face.

What we have inherited is example on top of example that God meets us where we are, that He is aware of us wherever we are, and that He is waiting to enter into our lives if we will but open the door.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone will open to Me, I will come in and sup with him, and he with Me (Rev. 3:20).

Until we are willing to open that door, God will remain to us a stranger and a foreigner, someone we have heard about but never met.