The Ocean and the Map

Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. (Deuteronomy 7:21 NIV)

When I first moved to North Carolina with my husband in 1985, one of the first questions I was often asked upon meeting someone new was, "Where do you go to church?"  Not so much anymore.  And that is probably because it is no longer assumed that everyone is a member of a church... and that is probably because fewer and fewer people are church members.  But I don't think that necessarily means we have more and more unbelievers.

C.S. Lewis tells about a time when after he gave a talk to a group of military, an old army sergeant said, "I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!"  Once we have truly experienced God's presence, we know he is so much bigger than any of those boxes in which we try to put him.  And I think that is what the "spiritual, but not religious" folks are trying to tell us.

But Lewis puts it all into perspective by comparing it to our experience of the ocean.  A map of the Atlantic just doesn't do it the way standing on the shore with our feet in the surf does.  The experience really makes us feel the greatness and majesty and power of the ocean.  A map is just... paper.  BUT, the map is the result of hundreds of thousands of acutal experiences of the ocean that come together to share that accumulation of experiences with others.  If you are content to walk on your own beach, well then that will be more fun than looking at a map.  But if you ever want to get to Europe or Africa,  you are going to need the map.

If our churches are so stuck in dogmas and creeds (the experiences of others) that we are not experiencing God for ourselves, then maybe we need to set our maps down for a while and let God guide us.  We need the unity of the church with all the shared experiences of the saints, past and present to help us grow; but we also need to experience the tremendous mystery of God, for that is the whole point of it, isn't it?  We need to experience that he is so much bigger than our boxes and our rules and our creeds.  If our churches could be the map AND the actual ocean, maybe people will start asking again, "Where do you go to church?"

Amazing and Mysterious God,
Help us to put down our "maps" and experience you for real.  Amen.