Goose Bumps, Tears and Sensations

Coming down the mountain was always the hardest part of going to church camp. It was so hard that the speakers and directors starting preparing us for the shock from the very beginning of the services. It was easy to be a Christian and be a young adult at the same time at camp. There was nothing but people similar to you, who shared your beliefs all immersed in the presence of God for the duration of the time at camp. You felt God all around you, especially in the services and study times. When you went down the mountain back to your normal life, you managed to keep that feeling for a little while, maybe even a few days, but it started to diminish quickly and it was hard to maintain. Didn't God exist at the bottom of the mountain? Or did the higher elevation keep me closer to Him and therefore His presence stronger all around me? Or the real question--was I chasing a feeling or longing for the same experience I had at camp. I wasn't looking for God, I was looking for how I thought God made me feel. I was chasing the experience I thought was God in my life.

It is funny, not really funny but peculiar how some will say that everything is fine when they are in church, that they fell like they are sitting in the presence of God then when they leave the sanctuary they don't feel that way anymore. We sing a few songs, maybe even raise our hands, listen to a preacher challenge our lives with the word of God and then we are done. We think we have met God because we went to church. We feel like we met God because we got some goose bumps as we were singing. We met God because we started crying during worship or it seemed like the pastor wrote that sermon for my life. If that is the case we are not going to church because we want to meet God, we are going to church so we can have an experience. If we are basing the presence of God on goose bumps or tears then we have seriously missed the mark. If we go to church and leave saying that we just didn't "feel it" today and use that to gauge the presence of God, then we are in more dire straits than we can ever imagine.

Only when we get to know God, know Him intimately, desire to know what is on His heart, can we begin to understand that feelings, sensation and experiences have nothing to do with His presence. It is about our willingness to not only seek the power of His hand, but to desire to know what is on His heart and what He has to say to us. When we quiet down and stop murmuring our requests and issues to Him long enough to hear what He has to say then we will know what the presence of God feels like. When we get out of our own way or take the God out of the box we have put Him in then we will know what the presence of God is all about. It is then we will see Him move the way He wants to move to accomplish what He has purposed to accomplish. He might even see fit to use us, if we will only listen long enough to let Him.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike