I was reflecting on something a Pastor friend shared with me the other day. He was talking about how a member of his church came up to him after a particularly transformative month. The congregant member said that he had been a Christian for 20 years, faithfully attended and served at his church for decades. However it was not until recent weeks that he had discovered what it meant to hear from and experience the presence of God in his life.

We are called to be people of the bible, to let it shape and inform our spiritual lives. Yet I wonder sometimes if we are reading enough? The Bible is clear that the early church had divine encounters, nudges from the Spirit, miracles from heaven….often. I do want to stress that these are not prescriptive of our faith. There is nothing we have to experience from the book of Acts in order to say we are a completely fulfilled Christian. Apart from believing in Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit. Of course in the book of Acts this happens in a variety of ways, so let us not make the story of different faith journeys normative for everyone.

However it seems to me that our lack of experience of God sometimes defines our faith more than a simple reading of the scripture. In other words, just because you have not experienced God in a certain way does not invalidate someone else’s experience.

For me, I do not want my faith experience of 20 years ago to define my faith experience now. In fact as God is infinite and eternal, so my faith journey can change, grow, experience something new….every day.

My prayer for my life is that I would continue to grow in my spiritual journey. Experience more of God’s voice and what that might mean, more and more as the years go on. Holy Spirit, You are welcome in my life.

If you want to hear a message from me on this, you can go here.