{"id":2588,"date":"2011-04-04T14:42:38","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T21:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/?p=2588"},"modified":"2018-12-29T20:45:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-29T20:45:21","slug":"experiencing-god-seeing-in-new-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/soul-significance\/experiencing-god-seeing-in-new-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing in new ways! Experiencing God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of us long for more of God, and we seem to have that desire deeply embedded in us, and this longing can manifest as a sense of being disconnected or like something is out of alignment.\u00a0 The truth is humanity was designed and created for authentic and healthy relationship with God our creator.\u00a0 We have mistakenly promoted knowing God as a purely intellectual exercise, but many are longing for what may best be explained as a divine embrace – a God hug!\u00a0 A desire to see and know God differently.\u00a0 This doesn’t mean we discard the healthy ways of knowing about God rather bring them alongside a healthy experience of the divine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps much of our religion has clouded our vision and closed our ears to the reality of a loving, present God working in our lives, our world and the lives of so many others,\u00a0 Perhaps, like the two folks on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35<\/a>) we miss Jesus among us when He doesn’t appear as we expect Him to.\u00a0 Perhaps like the blind man in Mark 8:22-26<\/a> <\/span>in we too need a second touch that we might begin to see in a new way and recognize God working in our lives and the world around us in some of the simplest everyday kinds of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once a radio interviewer told Rahner that he had never had an experience of God. Rahner responded emphatically: \u201cI don\u2019t believe you; I just don\u2019t accept that. You have had, perhaps, no experience of God under this precise code-word God, but you have had or have now an experience of God\u2014and I am convinced that this is true of every person.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013Karl Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Consider the laughter of a Child or the smile of a stranger as you pass them on the street.\u00a0 Consider all the things you are grateful for and the trees, birds, <\/span>and mountains.\u00a0 Perhaps we can stop and look upon another and see the image of God which is common to us <\/span>all and be thankful for the loving way the image of God is manifesting in their lives. \u00a0 The experience of God can be that simple but can be difficult to describe.\u00a0 It certainly evades an empirical assessment and can often be gentle and not demonstrative.\u00a0 Consider love.\u00a0 How we know and experience love from others, and the faithfulness of that love is all very difficult to convey and <\/span>in many ways easy to <\/span>overlook.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ask for the grace to see in a new way – to recognize those opportunities to see and experience God around and in us.\u00a0 Pause for the beautiful and the simple.\u00a0 Be deliberate with a breath or two and seek to see the image, beauty and wonder of God in yourself and others and then stand in awe, wonder and gratitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

Karl Rahner 1904-1984) was a Jesuit from Germany and was considered one of the top contemporary theologians.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many of us long for more of God, and we seem to have that desire deeply embedded in us, and this longing can manifest as a sense of being disconnected or like something is out of alignment.\u00a0 The truth is humanity was designed and created for authentic and healthy relationship with God our creator.\u00a0 We…","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[167,172,312,475],"class_list":["post-2588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soul-significance","tag-everyday-spirituality","tag-experiencing-god","tag-knowing","tag-slowing-down"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}