![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/lightning-300x199.jpg\" "\\"lightning\\"")
Have you ever had this thought, “How could the Israelites grumble against God after they saw Him part the Red Sea?” Or, “Why was Elijah fearing for his life after he witnessed God pour down fire from heaven at his command?”<\/p>\nHave you ever had this thought, “How could the Israelites grumble against God after they saw Him part the Red Sea?” Or, “Why was Elijah fearing for his life after he witnessed God pour down fire from heaven at his command?”<\/p>\n
There is something inside of us that is convinced that if we just experience some kind of amazing experience with God, that it would really change our life.<\/p>\n
However, I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think experience sticks with us like we’d like to think! Even if it’s a genuine God-moment.<\/p>\n
When I went on a few missions trips to Mexico, I had some profound experiences. How long did that last?<\/p>\n
I’ve had several unique experiences while in God’s presence, and how long did the effects of those last?<\/p>\n
I’m thinking that while experience can be profound while it is happening, its significance quickly wears off in our heads, given enough time. Even some of the deepest feelings fade away: When a close loved one passes away, we find that over time, our feelings aren’t so strong, and we even try to muster up those old feelings, afraid that we are loving them less if we don’t feel the same way about them now as we did then.<\/p>\n
I grew up in a Pentecostal denomination that highly valued special experiences with God. I don’t want to take away from the value of experience, but I’m not sure it really has a lot of long-term effect. In order for experience to be powerful, it must be a day-to-day thing. How long really can I live on yesterday’s experience with God?<\/p>\n
You can’t make God “show up” supernaturally everyday. If we are looking for some kind of spiritual thrill each time we open our Bible or pray, we will quickly give up. That doesn’t happen all-too-often. (At least for me.)<\/p>\n
It seems to me that the person who is always looking to experience God is someone who is reluctant to walk by faith. Walking by faith can indeed be a challenge, but perhaps it is more sustainable for the long haul? Perhaps if you walk by faith, you are more surprised as you look back on life–you see God’s presence in your life in places where you had no clue God was working at the time. But if you try to live merely by experience, I think you may quickly become disappointed at the lack of long-term fruit you were hoping to possess as a result of the experience.<\/p>\n
The Apostle Paul had some pretty amazing experiences with God–going to the “third heaven”–whatever that means, etc. Yet, when he looked back over his life, he found more worth to the times in his life when he suffered for Christ–the times when he really needed to walk by faith.<\/p>\n
While I do want to experience God, I think it’s healthy to realize that we are moment-to-moment creatures. We are not enamored for long. We need something more than momentary, goose-pimpled God-experiences to sustain us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever had this thought, “How could the Israelites grumble against God after they saw Him part the Red Sea?” Or, “Why was Elijah fearing for his life after he witnessed God pour down fire from heaven at his command?” There is something inside of us that is convinced that if we just experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-our-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1472"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1485,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions\/1485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}