Knowing God

Now, up to this point, I've been talking about spiritual growth from the perspective that there is some kind of reality beyond ourselves—a reality that, for lack of a better word, we call God.

Of course, the moment we use that word, we run into a challenge. Throughout history and across every culture, people have understood God in very different ways. Entire libraries have been written trying to answer the questions of who God is, what God is like, and how God works. People have debated those questions for thousands of years, and they will probably continue debating them for thousands more.

One of my favorite mentors and spiritual teachers used to begin every conversation about God with a simple piece of homespun wisdom that has stayed with me ever since. He would smile and say,

"There ain't nobody who knows nothin' for sure about God but God... and she ain't tellin'."

I have always loved that statement.

It reminds me that no matter how educated we are, how many books we've read, or how many degrees we may have earned, every one of us stands on equal ground when it comes to understanding God. The truth is, God is—and probably always will be—a mystery.

The problem is that most of us don't like mysteries. We want answers. We want certainty. We want everything neatly explained so we can feel as though we understand it.

Theologians, philosophers, and spiritual teachers from every religious tradition have devoted their lives to exploring the mystery of God. They have given us wonderful insights, but even the greatest among them eventually arrive at the same conclusion: the fullness of God is beyond the grasp of the human mind.

If I'm willing to be just a little cynical about human nature, I think one reason we are so determined to figure God out is because we hope that, once we understand how God works, we can somehow influence the outcome. We would like to know the rules, crack the code, and discover the formula for getting God to do what we want.

But that's not how relationships work.

When it comes to our relationship with God, there is a tremendous difference between knowing about God and knowing God.

Knowing about God is relatively easy. We read books, attend classes, listen to sermons, study Scripture, and gather information. We collect facts, ideas, experiences, and opinions, just as we might when learning about any historical figure or public personality.

Knowing God, however, is something altogether different.

It is much more like getting to know a dear friend. It grows through relationship, trust, shared experience, and a deepening awareness of one another's presence. It is less about accumulating information and more about discovering connections.

Now, that may sound mysterious or even a little intimidating. Some people imagine that knowing God requires dramatic visions, overwhelming emotions, or extraordinary spiritual experiences.

In my experience, it is usually much simpler than that.

Often it begins with a quiet moment when we suddenly become aware that there is something—or Someone—greater than ourselves.

It may happen as we watch the sun rise over the ocean or disappear beyond the mountains. It may come as we hold a newborn child, stand beneath a canopy of stars, listen to beautiful music, or sit quietly beside someone we love. It can happen in moments of profound joy, deep sorrow, or complete stillness. For just an instant, we sense that life is bigger, richer, and more meaningful than we had imagined.

Those moments are gifts.

They are often the beginning of a friendship with God.

The point I'm trying to make is this: coming to know God is much like falling in love or developing a lifelong friendship. It doesn't begin with mastering ideas or solving theological puzzles. It begins with a genuine encounter—with an awareness of a loving, compassionate Presence that invites us into relationship.

We may never fully understand that Presence, and perhaps we are not meant to.

But we can know it.

And, over time, we can learn to trust it, walk with it, and allow it to transform the way we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

Going Beyond the Abstract and Theoretical

At this point, it would probably be unfair for me to keep talking about coming to know God without giving you a real-life example of what I mean.

The problem is that people don't often tell stories like this. Sometimes that's because these experiences are so personal they're difficult to put into words. Other times, unfortunately, people tell them because they have a religious agenda, want to impress others, or are trying to persuade someone to join their group or support their ministry.

I have no interest in doing any of those things.

I simply want to share one experience that has shaped my life more than any other. I know it's genuine because it happened to me.

It took place on a Sunday morning sometime in the 1950s. I was about seven years old and sitting in church—a Roman Catholic church, to be exact.

To be honest, I doubt I was paying much attention to the service. I rarely did. The Mass was in Latin, spoken with a wonderful Irish brogue that was completely beyond my seven-year-old comprehension. I'd sat on those same hard wooden pews nearly every Sunday of my life, gazed at the same stained-glass windows, and watched the same rituals unfold week after week. Like most seven-year-olds, my mind was probably wandering somewhere far more interesting than the sermon.

Then something happened that I have never forgotten.

Without any warning, and for no reason that I could explain then—or can explain now—I suddenly became aware of a Presence.

I don't remember seeing anything. I didn't hear a voice. Nothing supernatural appeared before my eyes. There was simply an overwhelming awareness that Someone, or Something, was with me... and all around me.

Strangely, I wasn't frightened. If anything, I felt exactly the opposite.

I felt completely safe.

I felt completely loved.

I felt a peace unlike anything I had ever known.

The closest comparison I can make is the feeling of being wrapped in one of my grandmother's hugs. She was one of the most important people in my childhood, and when she held me, I knew everything was going to be all right. But this was even deeper than that. It was as though every part of me had been embraced by a love I didn't know existed.

More than sixty years have passed since that Sunday morning, and I still struggle to find words that adequately describe what happened. Even now, with all the vocabulary and experience that adulthood has given me, I cannot explain it completely.

I can only tell you that it remains the deepest sense of peace, security, and contentment I have ever experienced.

Looking back, I realize that morning changed my life.

The most remarkable part of the experience wasn't the feeling itself. It was the conclusion my seven-year-old mind reached almost immediately.

I somehow knew that the Presence I was experiencing was God.

No one had ever taught me that God could be experienced that way. In fact, much of what I had heard about God up to that point made me think that encountering God would probably be terrifying. I had somehow concluded that meeting God was something that happened after you died, when your eternal destination would be decided according to how well—or how poorly—you had lived your life.

But this experience didn't fit any of those ideas.

This wasn't fear.

This wasn't judgment.

This wasn't condemnation.

It was love.

It was peace.

It was acceptance.

Somehow, even as a seven-year-old, I knew that what I was experiencing was God.

I don't remember how long the experience lasted. I do remember how it ended.

My mother gently nudged me, leaned over, and whispered, "Close your mouth, sit up straight, and pay attention to what's being said about Jesus."

I smiled then, and I still smile every time I remember it.

Looking back, one of the things that amazes me most is how little I actually knew about God that morning. I was seven years old. I didn't know theology. I didn't understand salvation, grace, redemption, or any of the great doctrines of the Church. I knew Jesus and God were somehow connected, but I wasn't entirely sure how.

Growing up Catholic, I also had the impression that if I really wanted to get a message to Jesus, it might be wise to ask his mother to put in a good word first.

Before that morning, God had been something I didn't understand and rarely even thought about.

After that morning, in my seven-year-old mind, I still didn't know much about God, but I did know God was real and that God loved me.

But there was one thing that surprised me. Strangely enough, since the experience happened in church, you might think that I would have made a connection between being in church and experiencing God. But I didn’t. For some reason, the church was completely incidental to my feeling of God’s presence.

Even as a child, I was sure what happened that morning simply was between God and me, instead of God and the church, or the church and me, or even God, the church, and me. I don’t mean for that to sound confusing or self-centered; I just never put the two together in a way that meant I had to be in church to experience God’s presence.

Now, this was simply my childhood experience, and I certainly don't expect anyone else's experience of coming to know God to look anything like mine. One of the wonderful things about God is that God seems to meet each of us in the unique circumstances of our own lives.

For some people, their first awareness of God is dramatic and life-changing, leaving them with no doubt that something extraordinary has happened. Others describe it as a quiet, mystical experience that is difficult to put into words. Some discover God's presence during a time of great joy, while others find it in the midst of sorrow, illness, loss, or disappointment. For still others, coming to know God isn't a single moment at all. It is a gradual awakening that unfolds over months or even years until, one day, they realize that God has been quietly walking beside them all along.

There is no single formula. There is no required emotional response. There is no "right way" to encounter God.

The important thing is not what the experience is like, but what it awakens within us.

A genuine encounter with God almost always leaves us with a deeper sense of love, peace, compassion, gratitude, and hope. It enlarges our hearts rather than our egos. It makes us more interested in serving than in being served, more willing to forgive than to condemn, and more aware that life is about something much greater than ourselves.

I have also learned that these encounters are rarely ends in themselves. They are invitations. They invite us into a lifelong relationship with the One who first made Himself—or, as my old mentor liked to say, Herself—known to us.

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