New Reminders: Experience

Experience combines both the act of directly observing or participating in something, and the resulting knowledge or skill gained.  It encompasses both the process of encountering something and the lasting effects it has on a person.  In other words, experience involves actively engaging with the world through seeing, doing, or feeling things.  It's about being present and involved in a particular event or situation.  Presumably, experience leads to the development of practical wisdom and expertise.  It's the process of learning through direct application and reflection. 

In the field of education, we call it experiential learning, and it is why we like to have students engage in activities that demonstrate how things happen and what effect they might have on the participants.  For example, the act of putting certain ingredients together that might cause an explosion and learning why that might be dangerous or beneficial, depending on how it is employed.

Experience has a lasting effect on a person, shaping their understanding and perspective.  It's not just about what happens, but also how it feels and how it impacts our sense of self. In essence, experience is the rich interplay between direct engagement with the world, the knowledge and skills we acquire, and the personal impact it has on our lives. 

How then do we experience God?  Do we literally need to be struck by lightning to learn what we should or shouldn’t do?  Or, can we learn from hearing about the consequences others have experienced from doing the wrong thing.  Jesus sometimes used the experiences of others, in the parables that he used, to teach his disciples.  Other times, he created direct experiences to demonstrate what he wanted them to learn.  

To experience God, we must first have a relationship with Him, something the apostle John stresses often, in his letters to Christians.  1John 4:8 tells us that “God is love” As we experience God’s love, we can begin to share that love with others, and this in turn, will produce more and more love as others experience His love through us.  Love comes from God, so those who demonstrate love show that they have a relationship with Him.  The inverse is also true.  The person who does not demonstrate love does not know God.

The key to experiencing God, then, is not expecting a direct physical “experience” or an even an emotional “jolt” of some kind.  Rather, it is a lifelong process of belonging to Him through Christ, being moved by the Holy Spirit and growing in the knowledge of Him.  As we grow in faith, we become a part of God’s love, which he demonstrated, most vividly, by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross to save us from our sins.  If we recognize that we are sinful, by nature, we can accept God’s gift of salvation and experience God’s great love.  We will then delight in passing it on to everyone we encounter.  "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Romans 5:8. "We love because he first loved us."  1John 4:9.