Discovering God...Again

While sitting on my deck that overlooked the Teche Bayou in Louisiana, I was talking to God and prayed a prayer that has led to many changes in my views of life.  I had been having trouble sleeping as I was thinking through where I was in life. Many things were disturbing me. I didn’t like where I was and wasn’t sure where I was headed. My wife and I were separated and I lived too far from my daughters. Spiritually something was amiss. Peace would come then disappear. I had been working many hours on a project that consumed me. It was very successful but completely unacknowledged. All this seemed to just hang there as I sat staring at the water.

I prayed a prayer that night that I believe altered my course. It went like this: “God I do not want a revival. I can’t think of anything I would want revived. I don’t want restoration. I want to know you and experience you in a way I have never known. I want to read the Bible and see what I think you are saying without being influenced by what I have been told you were saying. I do not want to imagine that I might be hearing your voice or your direction. I don’t want to go by any old or familiar feelings. They have proven to be unreliable. I want to experience you exactly as you desire to be experienced. I want this as fully as a human being is capable. I want real companionship with you. A companionship that is unlike anything I have ever experienced.”

I never could have imagined where that way of thinking would lead me Many times I have been more than a little frightened by the radical new thoughts and ideas that have been presented for my consideration. Well, radical for me anyway. I was shaken to discover that only now in my life I have begun to see areas in my belief system that have gone unexamined

I see things in the Bible I have never seen. When I read the stories and am able to remove views from my own religious teachings, I begin to see some drastic differences in what I was taught and what I now believe is being said. I find this both frightening and enlightening at the same time.

I have new questions now. I have new insights. I now see more evidence of God in the world. Nothing has changed except a few shifts in perspective. It has been like removing a blindfold. 2011 is going to be a great year!