July 23, 2006

    Many people who are not particularly inclined to spending their spare time reading, are often taken aback by the thousands of books available to them in the religious or spiritual sections of book stores.  All they would want is a simple book that will help them to focus on the experience of God in prayer.  The sheer numbers cause them to pull back in discouragement.  The message seems to be that we need to be constantly reading if we want the full experience of prayer.  This of course is a false notion.

    In actuality, there are only three “books” that are absolutely needed in life if one is to have the full experience of God in their life.  The first is the Bible.  Experiencing God through the Bible does not mean that you have to read it from cover to cover however.  If would be better to begin with the New Testament and stay with that for as long as you need to.  Another name for experiencing God is Contemplation.  Contemplation is not something that happens simply by going through the Bible from cover to cover.  Rather, you would want to take one chapter at the time and spend some time reflecting on it.  You may even want to ask someone who is familiar with the Bible if there are some chapters or books that are recommended for your personal journey.

    The second “book” is the book of Nature.  This “book” is not to be read literally.  It is the beauty and awesome grandeur that we can experience if we only open our eyes, our hearts and all of our senses to the wonder of God’s creation.  There are many aspects of Nature.  There is the beauty of the lakes, the mountains, the ocean, (all of which we are fortunate enough to have in NH).  There is the beauty of the seasons, ( again the full experience for us in NH).  There is the experience of the animal kingdom where we can gaze in wonder and awe at the beauty and intelligence of each animal.  And then there is the beauty of the garden.  Even if we are not great gardeners, we can nonetheless feel the presence of the Creator God in our daily work.

    Lastly, the third “book” is the book of People.  We don’t often think of our family and friends, our co-workers or other people that we meet on a regular basis as a book to become familiar with.  We must not ignore this precious gift of relationships.  They help us to experience the presence of God daily.  The beauty of their presence, the care they have for us and others, the sense of humor they share which helps us get through the day, all of these things enable us to experience God.

    The fact that we can experience God through our daily encounters with creation and other people as well as with the Bible, tells us something about God.  It tells us that God wants to come to us and be with us in every dimension of our life.  We are not limited to the intellect.  We can and must experience or see God in all things and in all ways.  Despite our limitations we are nonetheless invited to know and be with the God that loves us.  Try it out this week.  See when and where you actually experience the presence of God in the events of your day.  If you come to the point of experiencing God, you will notice that your desire to Worship him will increase and your desire to stay away from worship will decrease.     Have a great “reading” time.
    
                                Lorette P. Nault