Who Is God To You?

[Deus te Amat]

I'm reading a very excellent book right now on the new evangelization, and in it, the author states that less than 5% of Catholics have a personal relationship with God. One of the reasons she gives for this incredibly low number is that our society has developed a taboo on talking about God and what He means to us personally. We have come to think that our relationships with Him are private and should be locked away deep inside and only brought out with Him or with a spiritual director.

 

That, my friends, is hiding your light under a bushel.

 

I am trying to figure out how God is calling me to live my life in witness, and I think this may have some part of it. Consider yourselves a social experiment.

 

 

I ask you -- who is God to you? How is it that you relate to Him?

 

 

Please try to keep this thread on topic. Let us walk together to Christ, in charity. 

[Spem in alium]

Interesting thread. :)

God is many things to me - a friend, a brother, a father...sometimes a sparring partner ;) Ultimately, though, God is love. I can't say I've felt more loved or valued by anyone else.

 

I tend to experience God most strongly in the everyday, and often quite spontaneously - though often, I find Him most easily when I'm in a natural environment or outdoors. My relationship with Him has become significantly more give-take, in that I've recognised while He has given me many wonderful things, and is still giving them, I can also offer Him things - my time, my love, my gifts, my very self. Realising this for myself has, I believe, led to a much more meaningful bond between us, and I'm grateful for it.

 

[PhuturePriest]

Benedict Cumberbatch.

[AccountDeleted]

I'm reading a very excellent book right now on the new evangelization, and in it, the author states that less than 5% of Catholics have a personal relationship with God. One of the reasons she gives for this incredibly low number is that our society has developed a taboo on talking about God and what He means to us personally. We have come to think that our relationships with Him are private and should be locked away deep inside and only brought out with Him or with a spiritual director.

 

That, my friends, is hiding your light under a bushel.

 

I am trying to figure out how God is calling me to live my life in witness, and I think this may have some part of it. Consider yourselves a social experiment.

 

 

I ask you -- who is God to you? How is it that you relate to Him?

 

 

Please try to keep this thread on topic. Let us walk together to Christ, in charity. 

 

 

Interesting topic but  how would the author even know that only 5% of Catholics have a relationship with God? I mean, just because one doesn't talk about it, doesn't mean they don't experience it. 

 

In fact, I would be one of those people she might thinks doesn't have a relationship with God because I don't talk about it all the time with others. Basically, I am a contemplative person whose relationship with God is very personal, and private. I think that one can 'witness' for Christ by trying to live as He preached, but perhaps it isn't always necessary for one to witness using words (unless one is a very good preacher!). In fact, some people, who use all the right words, may not be the best examples of Jesus' teachings at all if they don't practice what they preach. Wasn't it St Francis who said that we should preach the Gospel always, and when necessary, to use words?

 

I tend to view my relationship with God like that. If someone asks me about God, then I will try to express myself to them about Jesus, His Church, her teachings etc, but my actual relationship with Him isn't something that is easily put into words. Aquinas even wanted to burn all that he had written after having a personal encounter with God. And yet he wrote so many beautiful words. Still, he said that everything he had written was as straw.

 

My first SD awakened me to a personal relationship with Jesus - well, let's just say he told me how important it was, but he didn't try to describe his own experience to me. He just explained to me how important it was, so I had to take it to God in prayer. It wasn't until I actually had a personal encounter with Jesus though that I really understood it. And there aren't really any words for that experience to do it justice.

 

Perhaps how I see it is that it is the personal relationship with God that makes any witness for Christ possible, whether that witness involves a lot of words or just through acts of loving kindness. 

 

I think (for me) some of the best witnesses using words, are poems. Unfortunately I am not a poet, but all I have to do is read the Living Flame of Love to know that St John of the Cross had a truly deep relationship with God -- and even the commentaries can't really say more than the poem itself does to me.

 

Just my thoughts on this interesting topic. There is simply no way I could adequately describe who God is to me. 

 

edited for typo

Edited June 30, 2014 by nunsense

[Deus te Amat]

Interesting topic but  how would the author even know that only 5% of Catholics have a relationship with God? I mean, just because one doesn't talk about it, doesn't mean they don't experience it. 

 

In fact, I would be one of those people she might thinks doesn't have a relationship with God because I don't talk about it all the time with others. Basically, I am a contemplative person whose relationship with God is very personal, and private. I think that one can 'witness' for Christ by trying to live as He preached, but perhaps it isn't always necessary for one to witness using words (unless one is a very good preacher!). In fact, some people, who use all the right words, may not be the best examples of Jesus' teachings at all if they don't practice what they preach. Wasn't it St Francis who said that we should preach the Gospel always, and when necessary, to use words?

 

I tend to view my relationship with God like that. If someone asks me about God, then I will try to express myself to them about Jesus, His Church, her teachings etc, but my actual relationship with Him isn't something that is easily put into words. Aquinas even wanted to burn all that he had written after having a personal encounter with God. And yet he wrote so many beautiful words. Still, he said that everything he had written was as straw.

 

My first SD awakened me to a personal relationship with Jesus - well, let's just say he told me how important it was, but he didn't try to describe his own experience to me. He just explained to me how important it was, so I had to take it to God in prayer. It wasn't until I actually had a personal encounter with Jesus though that I really understood it. And there aren't really any words for that experience to do it justice.

 

Perhaps how I see it is that it is the personal relationship with God that makes any witness for Christ possible, whether that witness involves a lot of words or just through acts of loving kindness. 

 

I think (for me) some of the best witnesses using words, are poems. Unfortunately I am not a poet, but all I have to do is read the Living Flame of Love to know that St John of the Cross had a truly deep relationship with God -- and even the commentaries can't really say more than the poem itself does to me.

 

Just my thoughts on this interesting topic. There is simply no way I could adequately describe who God is to me. 

 

edited for typo

 

 

Nunsense, thank you very much for your reply, and I can see where you are coming from. I myself have not posted my own answer, because I am still trying to figure out how to adequately do so.

 

I would also like to clarify my original post. I think I may have mis-represented what the author was trying to say. The entire first chapter was a detailed statistical analysis of the Catholic church in America over the last 50 years. The number of converts vs. the number of people who have left the church... The reasons stated for leaving the church, the number of people who are raised Catholic that still attend Church as adults, potential factors for why they attend church, etc. The 5% was a number she received when asking priests their estimate for the number of people in their congregation who lived true discipleship -- who had a personal relationships with God. Note that it was 5% of their congregation -- that excludes people who don't attend Mass regularly, but still claim to be Catholic. I admit that the number may indeed be greater than that, but combined with the other statistics, the implications are still staggering. I think the greatest shock for her was that people who were in charge of formation for entire dioceses would respond to her questions in confusion. They did not set aside time for prayer, nor did they understand the need to do so.

 

Personally, with the above in mind, I would think that the priest would count you among the 5%. His answer arises from his witness of his flock, in confession, at Mass, around the parish, in prayer. There is a difference in service motivated by true discipleship vs. service motivated by duty.

 

When asking the question, I do not wish to receive intimate details of your experience with Him. That itself is precious and intimate, treasured gifts between you and God. I left the question vague, though, to leave people free to respond as they were inclined.

 

For you, nunsense, regarding the last part of your post, I would say that you may have more Dominican in you than you realize. You may not be a poet like Teresa or Therese, but one of the Dominican mottos is "to contemplate and to give unto others the fruit of that contemplation." You certainly do that in abundance here on Phatmass, and we thank you for your wisdom.

 

 

edited for clarity

Edited June 30, 2014 by Deus_te_Amat

[Deus te Amat]

Interesting thread. :)

God is many things to me - a friend, a brother, a father...sometimes a sparring partner ;) Ultimately, though, God is love. I can't say I've felt more loved or valued by anyone else.

 

I tend to experience God most strongly in the everyday, and often quite spontaneously - though often, I find Him most easily when I'm in a natural environment or outdoors. My relationship with Him has become significantly more give-take, in that I've recognised while He has given me many wonderful things, and is still giving them, I can also offer Him things - my time, my love, my gifts, my very self. Realising this for myself has, I believe, led to a much more meaningful bond between us, and I'm grateful for it.

 

 

Spem, thank you for bravely taking the place of first response! Your post is beautiful. Reading it, I have a feeling that I am going to get many spiritual fervorinos from this thread. We can learn from each other, though we all have our own paths to heaven. Thank you for sharing this bit of yours.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Deus_te_Amat

[brandelynmarie]

He is my Beloved :love:


This is very hard to put into words!

Thank you for giving us much food for thought...

[blazeingstar]

I think saying "who is God to you" reduces the relationship to feelings.  It really dosn't matter "who God is to you".  That changes nothing.  Unlike fragile hman relationships which are often run by feelings and by actions, God's feelings, nor His actions, ever change.

 

 

[Catherine Therese]

He is irresistible mystery, and He is that embrace that you never want to come to an end.

Like Spem, I relate to Him in different ways at different times, oscillating between friend, father, and - well, sparring partner doesn't quite go far enough for me... forget sparring and pulling one's punches - sometimes its bare-knuckled combat. But the same sort of gist as Spem described, nevertheless.  

Often enough He's the one sitting with me on the chair swing on a sunny afternoon, saying nothing as we stare at the contrasting colours between the clear blue sky and the earthy hues of orange and brown leaves... My relationship with Him in times of inner peace is very tender, my relationship with Him in times of intense sorrow or anger is occasionally comforting, almost always highly turbulent but strong nevertheless. 

 

Where my relationship with Him seems to falter is when I experience fear. 
I pray the psalms about Him being a rock, a shelter... and I WANT to relate to Him in that way. Somehow a moment of fear seems to wipe my memory of all recollection of His EXISTENCE, let alone His love for me and His omnipotent protection. I would love for Him to show Himself to me in these times, to be the first name on my mouth, the first person in my mind, the one to whom I fly. 

 

[brandelynmarie]

Now I do agree with the idea that however we describe our relationship with God, it does not change the essential relationship of God & man...the Creator & the created.

However, I disagree that it is a purely emotional/feelings based response to find ways to describe it from my subjective experience. :)


Love is willing the good of another...it is not a feeling. And although I use "Beloved", it is just not a fuzzy term of endearment. It is also an intellectual acknowledgement of how I understand He & I relate to One Another.

[AccountDeleted]

[Perigrina]

God is the source of all being, truth, goodness, and love. And God is Being, Truth, Goodness, and Love.  But that just makes Him sound like an abstract philosophical concept. And He is not.  He is a Person (well three Persons, to be precise) and I am therefore able to be in relationship with Him. I feel His love and care for me.  He is my Lover, Father, King, Comforter.  He keeps reaching out to me, finding ways past the barriers placed by my weakness, being present to me so I may know that He is there.  He enters into history in the Incarnation and through the Church.  He comes to me and sustains me with His Presence in the Eucharist.  

 

And all this is just a glimpse of a reality that is beyond my understanding or words, but I can tell that Something More awaits me if He brings me to Him after this life as I hope He will.

[Credo in Deum]

 

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[Fidei Defensor]

God is love.

[Catherine Therese]

However, I disagree that it is a purely emotional/feelings based response to find ways to describe it from my subjective experience. :)


Love is willing the good of another...it is not a feeling. And although I use "Beloved", it is just not a fuzzy term of endearment. It is also an intellectual acknowledgement of how I understand He & I relate to One Another.

 

Agreed. 

 

And there is value in turning over our own concept of God and how we relate within our prayer with Him... and there is also value in talking about this with others. As Deus_Te_Amat pointed out, this is part of what the Dominicans mean when they talk about contemplating, and passing on the fruits of one's contemplation. 

 

We will ALWAYS fall short of the reality, and God will always be a transcendent mystery. But He WANTS us to know Him and so it could never be futile to explore. 

 

As to the subjective/relativistic aspect of "who is God to me?" The whole point of a personal relationship is that it IS personal, and it IS subjective. In being subjective, it takes on a different character with different people, even though the relationship is with the same God. This is exciting and mysterious and very attractive to someone who might be searching for God. So there are evangelistic benefits to having this conversation too.