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| Monroe County |
If God is not with me, experientially, then what good is he to me?
What I deeply need is God, not words about God. I need God to walk before, with, and behind me in this desacralized, disenchanted world. If this is not real, experientially, then at most I am left with deism, and at worst I am an atheist.
I need God with me presently, because I am not smart enough to guide my own life, much less assist others on the way. I am not powerful enough to halt the eroding wasting-away of my physical body, much less heal others. I am not loving enough to overwhelm my enemies, and even struggle with loving myself. I am a flower that emerges from the ground, blooms, then quickly withers and dies. I am an ocean wave that crashes and recedes. I am weak in time and space, body and mind, strength and soul, a virtually unknown speck of matter in an ever-cycling faceless mass of humanity, situated in a universe that is beyond all human comprehension.
That’s me. That’s us. We are fragile, and small.
I am weak, but God is strong. This is my condition. I need help. On my own I am not strong enough, knowledgeable enough, or loving enough to do the job God asks of me. God, however, is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient. If I could connect with God, the resources that are his being could flow into me. I need God with me.
Is not this what we have been promised? The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”). I assume this does not mean God is with me, in theory.
- From John Piippo, Leading the Presence-Driven Church, (Kindle Locations 168-183).
