Never Alone
In chapter 3 of Hearing God, Dallas Willard leads us on an exploration of what it means for God to be with us. It is a statement that is often taken for granted, or understood in a simplistic way. “Of course God is always with us,” the person might say, “he is God, and God is everywhere!” True, but knowing that God is omnipresent doesn’t inspire confidence. The reason it doesn’t inspire confidence is because it is mere information; it is a way of answering a question on a theology exam. But knowing that God is omnipresent, is not the same as knowing how the God that is omnipresent is with us. There is all the difference in the world between the two kinds of knowledge.
But before looking at the omnipresence, or “with-us-nature,” of God, we must look at humanity. The truth is human beings were created for relationship. This is part of what it means that God said, “Let us make humans in our image, and likeness.” And later, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Inherent within each person is a desire to know and be known by another. And yet we find that we cannot know, or be known fully, by anyone that we’ve met. Spousal relationships are probably the deepest on earth, and how often do married people feel as if the other person doesn’t “get them?” How often do we feel alone, even in a crowd?
In this chapter Willard tells a story of when his first child was born. “I realized painfully that this incredibly beautiful little creature we had brought into the world was utterly separate from me. Nothing I could do would shelter him from his aloneness in the face of time, brutal events, the meanness of other human beings, his own wrong choices, the decay of his own body and, finally, death.”
So while we were made for relationship, we do not have the capacity to really be with one another… But God is able. “He is able to penetrate and intertwine himself within the fibers of human self in such a way that those who are enveloped in his loving companionship will never be alone.” This is refreshing news! This means that there is someone that allows us to finally say, “He gets me.” Thus, we never ever have to experience being alone, because Immanu-el.
But what does it mean that God is with us? And why should one want to live in the experience of God being with them? Some have answered that question by pointing to the gifts that a relationship with God brings. It is just a simple truth that life with God, or with anyone, will impact a life, internally and externally. Some relationships bring many physical blessings, and when one knows this to be true, they are driven to pursue the relationship. Unfortunately this sometimes leads people to begin relationships that treat the other as a means, and not the end. An extreme of this can be seen in the prosperity gospel, where a relationship with God is promised to bring health, wealth, and happiness. Those things are the end, God is reduced to a means of giving the person what they really want.
Seeking a relationship with God for what God can give seems wise, but it is actually a way of shortchanging oneself. As Albert Mohler once said, “The problem with the prosperity gospel is not that it promises too much, but that it promises too little.” So it is with anyone who pursues God for the gifts; such a pursuit keeps them from realizing that his presence is the ultimate gift. It is when we live in relation to God, the ultimate gift, that we begin to realize who we are, and why we were made. “You have made us for yourself,” cried Augustine, “and our hearts are restless, until we find our rest in you.” In this constant fellowship with God, we enter into his living rest, and we come to realize that we are never actually alone.
Ok, so how do we have that?
Willard highlights several ways of God being with us. The first, and most minimal, is Blind Faith. This is when God is present in our lives through conviction. It is when we theologize and conclude that he must be there. But the person with blind faith has “no awareness of his being here with us at all and no evidence of his action in or around us.” This method of knowing God’s presence shouldn’t be despised, says Willard, but it cannot provide a foundation for continuous spiritual growth.
The next way is Sensing God’s Presence. This way of knowing God’s presence is through feelings and/or impressions. It is a method that requires the person experiencing it to train themselves to be aware of and recognize when their senses are indicating the nearness of God. This is very much like when we sense that someone is looking at us, only later on in the day to have someone say, “Were you at the grocery store earlier? I thought I saw you, but I didn’t want to say anything.” We sensed it, we felt them looking at us. The same can be true when God desires to get a persons attention, a persons senses can become an ally in knowing the nearness of God.
The God Who Acts. Another way of us knowing that God is with us is through God’s actions in our lives. These are actions that are often extraordinary and not attributable to natural causes. In this category God’s presence might be felt, but sensing is not always essential to experiencing God’s activity. Willard says, “The mark of the working of God’s spirit with us is the incommensurability of the effects with our merely human powers.” (Note: incommensurability means there is no common measure. It is what is expeienced when, for example, the apostle Paul heals somebody. That healing is incommensurable with Paul’s natural ability. That it happened shows that God was acting with Paul.)
Another good example of the incommensurability of God’s actions and ours are found in a story of an interaction between David Livingstone and Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon often worked 18 hours a day. Livingstone, impressed by his ability to work hard, and work excellently, once asked him, “How do you manage to do two men’s work in a single day?” Spurgeon replied, “You have forgotten that there are two of us.” God was acting with Spurgeon to bring about results that were not typical of Spurgeon’s nature alone. Spurgeon’s response reminds me of Paul’s words in Colossians 1:29, “For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me.”
“You have forgotten that there are two of us.” – Charles Spurgeon
Another way of knowing God is with us is through conversational relationship. Since God is personal, it would only make sense that God would engage in conversation. Therefore, hearing the voice of God is one of the highest ways of knowing that God is with us. Willard is cautious to explain that hearing God’s voice does not mean receiving constant instructions from God. God is not like our GPS guide, he does not guide mechanically. He guides personally. “Personal guidance brings things to the desired outcome but, at the same time, allows the others person’s mind to be guided to its fullest capacity without coercing that person’s will. Thus the outcome is the work of both the individual being guided and the one who is guiding.”
The two ways that God typically guides persons are 1) The word of God. Often this is the recorded words of God found in the Bible, and other times it is the word of God that comes to somebody. Examples of this kind of speech are numerous throughout the Bible. 2) Through shared activity. Willard says, “We understand what he is doing so well that we often know exactly what he is thinking and intending to do.” In other words, “Having the mind of Christ.” (Philippians 2:5-11 & Colossians 3:1-17).
I am a big NBA fan. There are few things better to me than an amazing assist. I can recall a reporter asking Magic Johnson how he was able to pull off some of his unbelievable no-look passes to his teammates. “I just know where they are on the court.” He just knows. Well, actually, he doesn’t just know. But through time spent in practice, he has come to know what to expect of them on the court, and they have come to know what to expect of him. In other words, their closeness and togetherness has led to them working together without having to constantly say, “You do this, then I’ll do that.” The result is often beautiful and musical basketball. This, says Willard, can be true of ones relationship with God. Through constant fellowship we can know what God would do, want, or like. The result is always beautiful and musical living.
“The conversational relationship we carry on with God creates our unique life. And that is how God wants things to be.”
In other words, God is intent on developing human beings to become the kinds of people that do whatever they want to do. He wants human beings that have been so trained in being with him, that they have become like him.