The Sacred Journey — Relationship with God

I believe in God.

But that statement raises another question:

What do I mean when I say “God”?

That question has followed me throughout my pilgrimage.

Is God the God I encountered in the Old Testament, where some passages portray God in ways that can seem very different from the loving and merciful God I encounter in Jesus?

What is the relationship between the God Christians worship and Allah as understood by Muslims?

What can I learn from Native American understandings of the Great Spirit?

What are false gods?

What is an idol?

What is God like?

What are God’s attributes?

What do Christians mean when we speak of the Trinity?

Is God distant from creation, as the Deists taught, or is God both transcendent and intimately present?

These aren’t questions that threaten my faith.

They are part of my Sacred Journey.

I was taught about God long before I was old enough to examine what I had been taught. Parents, pastors, teachers, churches, and Sacred Writings gave me language for understanding God.

I am grateful for that foundation.

But eventually the Curious Pilgrim began asking questions.

And the four ways I seek truth became part of that journey.

What do Sacred Writings teach me about God?

The Bible has been the primary collection of Sacred Writings through which I have learned about God. But does that mean I cannot learn something about God from other sacred writings?

What might I learn by reading the Qur’an?

The Bhagavad Gita?

The Tao Te Ching?

What might Native American spiritual traditions teach me?

Asking those questions doesn’t mean I believe all religions are the same. They aren’t.

It doesn’t mean every religious teaching is true.

It means I am willing to listen.

Years ago, the Classic Seniors program at King’s Way welcomed Professor Larry Campbell, who taught mathematics at Missouri State University. Professor Campbell is a Christian who had also studied the Tao Te Ching.

He presented a comparison between Christian Sacred Writings and the Tao Te Ching. What fascinated me were the parallels—the similar ideas and teachings that could be found in two very different traditions.

That didn’t prove that Christianity and Taoism were the same.

It raised a question.

Why do similar insights sometimes appear among people separated by culture, geography, language, and religious tradition?

Are there truths about God, humanity, relationships, compassion, humility, and the way we should live that people in different cultures have discovered?

And if there are, what might that teach me about God?

I don’t want to answer that question too quickly.

I want to explore it.

Tradition is also part of my Sacred Journey.

Christian tradition has given me centuries of people wrestling with questions about God. The Trinity, the nature of Christ, the Holy Spirit, prayer, worship, sacraments, grace, salvation, and countless other subjects have been examined by people who traveled this road long before I arrived.

I need their wisdom.

But tradition can also create boundaries around God and tell us, You may think this far, but no farther.

So I have to discern.

Experience contributes something else.

There have been times when God seemed very near and times when God seemed silent.

There have been prayers that seemed answered and prayers followed by silence.

There have been people through whom I experienced unexpected grace.

There have also been experiences that forced me to reconsider things about God that I once thought I understood.

Then reason and discernment ask me to bring all of this together.

What do I know?

What do I believe?

Why do I believe it?

What might I be misunderstanding?

What haven’t I considered?

And what can someone whose journey is very different from mine teach me?

Sacred Writings themselves remind me to approach these questions with humility.

God declares in Isaiah:

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.”

If I believe that, then I need to be careful about assuming that my understanding of God is identical to God.

Jesus also said:

“I have other sheep that are not of this fold.”

I don’t want to make that verse prove something Jesus wasn’t saying. But it does make this Curious Pilgrim wonder:

Could God’s activity extend beyond the boundaries where I expect to find God?

Could I encounter truth somewhere I wasn’t expecting it?

Could another person’s understanding challenge me to see something about God that I had overlooked?

How big am I willing to allow God to be?

There is a difference between saying:

I know God

and saying:

I know everything there is to know about God.

I can know another person deeply and still discover something new about that person after many years.

How much more humility should I have when speaking about God?

And then 1 John brings my Sacred Journey out of theology and into everyday life.

“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars.”

That challenges me.

I cannot claim to love God while treating people who understand God differently from me as inferior.

History is filled with people being called infidels, heretics, savages, or uncivilized because they didn’t believe, worship, or live as the majority thought they should.

I don’t want to approach another human being that way.

That doesn’t mean I must agree with everyone.

Love is not the same as agreement.

I can listen respectfully to a Muslim without becoming Muslim.

I can learn something from the Tao Te Ching without becoming Taoist.

I can listen to Native American spiritual wisdom without pretending that I completely understand it.

I can disagree with another Christian without condemning that person.

Respect doesn’t require sameness.

And listening doesn’t require surrendering my convictions.

It requires recognizing another person as someone worthy of love and respect.

That brings me to something else I have learned.

My relationship with God cannot be separated from my relationship with other people.

And neither can be completely separated from my relationship with myself.

Jesus said to love God and to love my neighbor as myself.

Those relationships are interdependent.

If I misunderstand God, it can affect how I treat other people.

If I despise other people, something is wrong with my claim to love God.

If I don’t understand or accept myself, that will affect the way I relate both to God and to others.

That is why I call this category The Sacred Journey.

It isn’t a journey toward having God completely figured out.

It is a journey of relationship.

I will continue reading.

I will continue listening.

I will continue learning from those who traveled before me.

I will continue paying attention to my experiences.

I will continue crossing boundaries and listening to people whose understanding differs from mine.

I will continue asking questions.

And I will continue discerning.

I believe I can have convictions while remaining curious.

I can say, “This is what I have come to believe about God,” without saying, “Therefore, there is nothing more for me to learn.”

Perhaps that is part of what makes the journey sacred.

I seek to know God.

I seek to love God.

And if that relationship is genuine, it must continually teach me how to love myself, love my neighbor, and remain open to encountering God somewhere I wasn’t expecting.

The journey continues.

The Curious Pilgrim