Experiencing God

How to Live the Full Adventure of Knowing and Doing the Will of God

Henry T. Blackaby & Claude V. King

ISBN 0-8054-0197-0

1998 October 18 to 2000 April 6.

Reviewed 2000 April 8.

I had been in counseling with respect to leaving AMSAT in the late 80s and early 90s. It was useful, but expensive. In the mid 90s, Viann suggested I should talk to my pastor, Charles Barker. I went to see him in October 1997 and we talked for a while and one of the results of the session was that we thought we might jointly read this book. I went to amazon.com and bought one. The transmission in his car went out on the freeway the day of our follow-up session and he had to cancel. We never rescheduled.

Still, I started through the book like an engineering text, trying to find the knowledge it would take for me to hear God and respond appropriately. What I found here was not much help. I found the lesson "submit everything to God and trust him entirely and don't question authority" but I didn't find much about hearing God or figuring out what he's doing. The book has exercises and questions to answer, but I ended up filling the columns with penciled arguments and objections. In answer to the early question, "I want this study to....," I put, "prove that God is not just a creation in man's image for safety and security and a means of achieving peace of mind." Parts of the book were circular, as, I suppose, all arguments of faith are. I found parts profound and moving, but I found parts that just looked like the standard "cut and control" perpetrated on us by authority figures in the church and elsewhere.

I have decided, partly from this and partly independently, that God is not just a creation of man. His nature and how to hear Him are still mysteries. Is this one of those things that some have and some don't? (Yes blasphemy to the dogmatic, but I really want to know.)

How is one supposed to answer a question like: "When God gives you a directive, how much should you trust your human knowledge, common sense, and wisdom to guide your actions?" I said, "None, but I have no other way to hear, exactly my point." On 1998 November 11, I wrote, (p. 27) "I've had a great deal of trouble with this chapter. It is not the ideas I don't believe or God I don't trust, it is the interpretation, everything right, the first time, etc. This may be fine, but I do not trust my ability to receive everything correctly or the first time. And, of course, if I believe everything comes out OK because I'm onboard and believe the Bible, then whatever happens, no matter how bad, must be good, OK, God's will, all for the best, regardless. This can easily become circular and therefore useless. So, I will answer the questions tritely and try to move on."

The basic premise/approach has to do with the seven realities of experiencing God, which I quote: (p. 50)

1. God is always at work around you.

2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.

4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.

5. God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crises of belief that requires faith and action.

6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.

7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

This is all fine, except that I'm more or less opposed by policy to "major adjustments" sorts of things without "major guidance" which I don't get because I'm deaf. Even so, if I really knew I was hearing God, I would follow through all the same.

With these pursuits in mind, I really hit a nail in the board on page 124, under the list of "Things Only God Can Do" number one was "God draws people to Himself." I was searching for ways to learn what God wants, to hear from God, and I got this!

For completeness, the others were:

God causes people to seek after Him.

God reveals spiritual truth.

God convicts the world of guilt regarding sin.

God convicts the world of righteousness.

God convicts the world of judgment.

I meditated on these a long time and could only come up with "yeah, if you say so, whatever they each mean." But to the first one, I had to say, "Wait!" God is conceived by people as an all powerful, all knowing, all present being who is totally loving of them and cares for them intimately, even though we don't see obvious physical evidence (and, in fact, see quite a bit of evidence to the contrary of love), but people are drawn to this picture of God only by an act of God Himself? Then who draws people to JFK, or Martin Luther King, or Ghandi? God? Themselves? Their own needs? No, I don't buy that people come to God only because of an act of God except as an extension that they don't exist at all except for God.

I had to say (p. 189) that, "The main problem with practical Christianity is abused leadership."

He fills out his points with stories from the Bible and anecdotes about his own ministry in Canada. These are the most enjoyable parts of the book. The rest he is philosophizing, preaching down. Towards the end he starts to wind down with the costs of obedience (versus the greater costs of disobedience). All of religion is on this Royal Hierarchy model. Unswerving, unquestioning obedience. If the directives were simple and clear, "go kill the enemy," that would be fine, and for the ones for which it is, it is fine. When I don't hear God speak, what am I to do? Follow my own wisdom and intuition? Interests? Forbid!

Finally at the end, p. 266, he is dealing with all the problems people had in the Bible interpreting God's directives to them. Paul had a dream that led him to go to Macedonia but all the doors closed and he ended up doing something else and reinterpreting the dream. Is God that inept that He can't make himself clear? Really? Are we that poor of a creation? Are we that corrupted by fleshly, reality things? Or perhaps by our youth compared to God? Really? And so, I said, "This is my problem with this whole book. Call me stubborn, not one of the sheep or whatever, but we are supposed to obey God at great cost and without debate or discussion, but we can't even tell what He's saying. Even Henry (the author) doesn't seem to understand at times." Indeed, even the Apostle Paul! Blackaby says, "Many times we jump to a conclusion too quickly. God is moving us in one direction to tell us what He is about to do. We immediately jump to our own conclusion about what He is doing and when He is going to do it because our conclusion sounds so logical." To which I said in frustration, "How dare I!"

He recommends us to go back to God for clarification. God can't be clear to start with? To read the Bible, you would think He had a lot of trouble being understood. But, my last note in the book, warning against pride when the glory really goes to God, I had to admit, "This is a problem for me."

I'm not a non-believer, but I find God's accessibility quite problematic and this book, for it's leading title, was no help. I realize that I'm nothing to Him in terms of wisdom and knowledge. He's the one who wants relationship, who wants partnership, who wants worship and obedience. I claim, still, that it's up to Him to make Himself clear.

I brought this up with Roland, I said, "I have trouble with parts of this book." He replied, "I have trouble with big parts of the Bible!"

This was not the self-help book for which I had hoped. I've decided to take my approach and my questions back to the Bible itself and started this week reading with Joshua at a pace that will get me through in about a year. I'll read, ponder, and outline every chapter, but won't spend too much or too little time on each. And, I'll listen for God in all the places He's supposed to be heard.