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I spent some time in the mountains last weekend. Natural environments
are interesting, but I am never very comfortable in my own skin out in
the great lonely. I have many, MANY friends that talk about how close
to God they feel when they are out in nature. I had occasion to think
on this idea that a person can feel closer to God when they are alone
in nature, then when they are surrounded by people, responsibilities,
noise pollution, and deadlines.
~~~
My belief system, and faith, has taught me(and shown me experientially)
that God is a trinity. He is one essence, but three distinct persons.
He is manifest as God the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit
simultaneously in perichoresis (interpenetration). The Father relates
to the Son through the Spirit and the Son relates to the Father through
the Spirit and the Spirit relates to each of the other two as the
empowerment and activity of God Almighty. I sat alone about 1/2 mile
away from my wife and little niece and thought of this 'dance of the
Godhead' that takes place even when God is completely alone. For, God
the Father is never alone in the sense that he is without the Son and
the Spirit. They are interrelating and interpenetrating with one
another in eternal fellowship. The Son is not independent of the
Father. The Spirit is not independent of Father or the Son. They are
not even interdependent as we understand it; like the bacteria in our
intestines are dependent upon our intestines to survive, and the
intestines do not do their work without the bacteria operating on the
digested food: this is not what the Trinity is like. The Trinity is not
like that because there is no dependence.... there is only the Three in
One: being. Existing. Self-existing. interpenetrating one with the
other in a dance of relationship on a scale about which our minds can
only dimly imagine.
~~~
Anyway, I'm out in the nature that people claim to be so close to God
while in it, and I am alone. I recognize that Jesus went off alone to
commune with God, and we as Christ followers often say that since Jesus
went off to be alone with God the Father, then we should go off as well
in order to be closer to God. I wonder if that really holds true.
Bearing in mind that God is eternally in relationship, would it not
make more sense that to be as close to the Triune God as a person could
be a state of relationship would be crucial? Further, since we are not
created to be interpenetrative beings that relate to ourselves
eternally as self-existing, perichoretic deity, would it also not make
sense that the relationship that brings us closest to God necessarily
needs to be a relationship with other created beings; namely other
people?
I sat 1/2 mile away from others and thought about God and about
relationship. As I was alone in nature, I took the time to ask him for
help in getting closer to Him through my interrelationships to the
objects of his most affectionate and passionate work; namely people.
Being alone does inspire a feeling. A feeling of liberty overtakes a
person when they are away from others. A feeling of being free of the
responsibility that God has placed on a man or woman to relate, and to
relate well, to all of those people that one comes across in the course
of the day. Perhaps that feeling people get in nature when they are
alone is not actually closeness to God, but temporary freedom from the
burden of others that God asks us to bear in his word.
"Lord, help me to come down off the mountain. I am not closer to you up
here. It's down there in the valley that I meet you in relationship to
others. Allow me this time on the hilltop to appreciate your creation,
and to recharge my tired, introverted and fallen nature. Thank you for
relationships; especially when they are the means by which I find
myself closest to You, Lord God Almighty."
  
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| | Posted 9/11/2009 4:43 PM - 23 Views - 2 eProps - 5 comments
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