TRUEBLOOD: Faith, five senses lead to God
Last Friday I spent nine hours in a car driving across the seemingly flat, open Nebraska landscape with four other girls. The ride itself was fun: We sang songs, talked about our junior high days and discussed the things we like to do with our parents. As much as we enjoyed the ride together, nothing could exceed our growing excitement more than the thought of our destination.
We made the trek across Nebraska to enjoy a weekend retreat with the Navigators leadership team at Navigator-owned Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs. The 2,225-acre estate, comprised of red sandstone mountains covered in a variety of coniferous trees, has been a place for Christians to gather for fellowship and prayer for more than 50 years.
As we entered through the front gate of the property, I could not deny the spiritual aura permeating the thin mountain air surrounding us. My friend commented that it felt as if we were entering "God's house." I and the other girls unanimously agreed. There's something enlightening about being in a place so old and natural, where the unadulterated mountains jut into the pure blue sky free of city smog, where the trees grow tall and vibrant without the help of fertilizer.
In my day-to-day life, I've felt just a hint of the spiritual atmosphere of Glen Eyrie. The chaos of life, however, often masks the magnificent magnitude of what I perceive to be God. When I'm surrounded by the beauties of nature, I become more internally tuned to the divine works around me and have a heightened awareness of the way the world's been marked with God's fingerprints.
My awareness is not a merely human sensation but a fulfillment of what the Apostle Paul declared in the book of Romans: "For ever since the creation of the world, (God's) invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So (people) are without excuse (altogether without any defense or justification)" (Romans 1:20, Amplified).
Paul states here that God's "handiworks"– the mountains, trees, oceans, sky, anything not made by human hands – are plain evidence of God's "eternal power and divinity," leaving every human without a valid excuse against His existence.
A.W. Tozer, a renowned theologian, observes in his book "The Pursuit of God" that the same terms used to express knowledge of physical things, are also used to express knowledge of God.
For example, in Psalm 34, the psalmist writes "O taste and see that the Lord is good." Tozer explains that we possess "spiritual faculties" that allow us to know God as well as we know material things by using our five senses.
One sense mentioned by the psalmist is taste. Think of the most delicious fruit you've ever tasted. For me it would be a strawberry fresh off the vine. When I sink my teeth into the plump, juicy red berry, it permeates my taste buds with a pure, heavenly sweetness that I can't help but think proclaims God's goodness. The strawberry is only one of the many natural foods I like to imagine the angels eat.
Another sense the psalmist addresses is sight. In Psalm 19:1 the psalmist writes, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." As I've already mentioned, everything that hasn't been created by mankind attests to God's power and craftsmanship.
In addition to all of the marvelous masterpieces of nature, the Lord's goodness could not be more fully understood than in the most remarkable miracle of all: human beings. The various colors of skin, eyes and hair, the range of heights and body builds, and the unique variety of temperaments and personalities instills a sense of wonder at our inherent diversity. Our capability to feel, think, love and form relationships with each other is another amazing thing that declares a goodness greater than us.
Tozer notes that faith is the enabler that allows our spiritual faculties to function. He writes, "Where faith is defective, the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things."
Although many might admit the existence of God, faith that He is worth knowing in a personal way often seems limited.
Like a relationship with any person, it takes time to understand how a person works. A friendship is never built by knowing everything there is to know about someone from the start; it takes faith that a person is worth investing in. As we spend more time with someone, we learn what makes that person the way he or she is, and, subsequently, our relationship develops into a deeper bond of trust and understanding.
In the same way with God, a relationship with Him must be built on the faith that He is worth knowing and investing in. Although the human mind is too feeble to fully comprehend the Lord's deity, a better understanding of God's divine nature and character can be attained through constant interactions with Him.
I often find myself "experiencing God" in little day-to-day things, like in the smiles and laughter of friends, in the kindness of strangers, and in random life encounters that never seem truly "random." This weekend in the mountains provided me with one of the most personal experiences yet: It was as if God were standing right next to me, declaring His love in a thousand different ways as I admired the splendor around me.
I wasn't the only one who felt God's presence: All of us on the retreat shared a common experience of Him that only confirmed what we felt was real – God is real. It was one of those few moments where I have been acutely aware of the spiritual things of God, awakening my innate desire to know God in the personal way that I know a friend.
Some will continue to ignore God and strive to disprove Him, but in the face of His overwhelming presence, I cannot. To deny God would be to deny myself, for I do not believe that I would exist if God did not exist. As Paul writes in Acts 17:25, it is God himself who "gives all men life and breath and everything else."
At the end of his chapter "Apprehending God," Tozer closes with a prayer I feel is the best way I can summarize my heart's perpetual cry:
"O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good. Make heaven more real to me than earthly thing has ever been. Amen."
Tozer attests to the ability within all of us to know God "if we will but respond to His overtures." It takes spiritual receptivity to know God's nearness; many, however, as Tozer writes, "do not know that God is here." To echo his words in a simple conclusion, "What a difference it would make if they knew."
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