The Weakness of Supernatural Experiences
Apr 06
Have you ever had this thought, “How could the Israelites grumble against God after they saw Him part the Red Sea?” Or, “Why was Elijah fearing for his life after he witnessed God pour down fire from heaven at his command?”
There is something inside of us that is convinced that if we just experience some kind of amazing experience with God, that it would really change our life.
However, I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think experience sticks with us like we’d like to think! Even if it’s a genuine God-moment.
When I went on a few missions trips to Mexico, I had some profound experiences. How long did that last?
I’ve had several unique experiences while in God’s presence, and how long did the effects of those last?
I’m thinking that while experience can be profound while it is happening, its significance quickly wears off in our heads, given enough time. Even some of the deepest feelings fade away: When a close loved one passes away, we find that over time, our feelings aren’t so strong, and we even try to muster up those old feelings, afraid that we are loving them less if we don’t feel the same way about them now as we did then.
I grew up in a Pentecostal denomination that highly valued special experiences with God. I don’t want to take away from the value of experience, but I’m not sure it really has a lot of long-term effect. In order for experience to be powerful, it must be a day-to-day thing. How long really can I live on yesterday’s experience with God?
You can’t make God “show up” supernaturally everyday. If we are looking for some kind of spiritual thrill each time we open our Bible or pray, we will quickly give up. That doesn’t happen all-too-often. (At least for me.)
It seems to me that the person who is always looking to experience God is someone who is reluctant to walk by faith. Walking by faith can indeed be a challenge, but perhaps it is more sustainable for the long haul? Perhaps if you walk by faith, you are more surprised as you look back on life–you see God’s presence in your life in places where you had no clue God was working at the time. But if you try to live merely by experience, I think you may quickly become disappointed at the lack of long-term fruit you were hoping to possess as a result of the experience.
The Apostle Paul had some pretty amazing experiences with God–going to the “third heaven”–whatever that means, etc. Yet, when he looked back over his life, he found more worth to the times in his life when he suffered for Christ–the times when he really needed to walk by faith.
While I do want to experience God, I think it’s healthy to realize that we are moment-to-moment creatures. We are not enamored for long. We need something more than momentary, goose-pimpled God-experiences to sustain us.
Great thoughts!
I have to say that I’m still struggling with establishing the true value of experiences like what you are talking about. I know that you are well aware of Paul’s writings in 1 Cor 14, and I think that holds some of the keys that those experiences are great, but edifying others is better than edifying only ourselves (verse 19). That unfortunately keeps things very generally, though.
I do think that our experiences in life and worship provide us with context and a framework for understanding what God wants us to understand. In that instance the experience is not an end-point, though, but a path to where God wants us to be. The faith that God wants us to have may not even be possible without specific worship experiences, but seeing those experiences as the point of worship is probably misguided. Even then, like you mentioned, the experiences of worship through suffering rather than the experiences of worship through praise will almost certainly be what has the greatest impact on our growth.
I agree, Drew. Perhaps the purpose of life/worship experiences is to give us that extra courage to be willing to be thrusted into experiences of suffering. After all, I’m not sure how many Christians would be willing to suffer for Jesus without having any kind of major experiential encounter with Him first.
That being said, if we do experience such things w/God but still refuse to step out of our comfort zone into suffering for Him, perhaps those experiences may be of little value.
I’ve thought about this over the past couple weeks so I appreciate you writing about it. I definitely agree that we should not be people who are seeking out deep spiritual experiences for their own sake. If we do, we can quickly lose focus on God.
I think God will on occasion surprise us with a mountaintop experience, and it can greatly build us up. And in our joy at encountering God we will gladly commit to Him our entire life and pledge to follow Him no matter what the cost.
It is in the more mundane time following that experience, those times of suffering, that can solidify and deepen what happened to us on the mountain. It can take that commitment we made out of great joy (euphoria) and deepen it into a commitment that we will hold to when the going gets rough. It can more fully inform us about what we just promised God on the mountain. Maybe it’s like getting a wide view of the landscape below that we will have to traverse once we come down from the mountain. We can see the entire path and destination, but when we’re actually walking on the path we can only see where we are and have to trust that God is still there guiding us, and it can help to remember what we saw from the mountain top.
I think the problem comes in when after the mountaintop experience we refuse to set our feet to the path and instead try to climb back up the mountain. Then the experience we had on the mountaintop fails to solidify and whatever apparent transformation happened there doesn’t last and we’re back to square one, and maybe also a bit jaded.