A question and answer from a forum on the presence of God

A question was put on a forum:

Hey guys,

Well I have 2 questions to ask you all....

1) Do you subjectively experience the presence of God on a regular basis?
2) If you answer yes to the above, how is this done?

Please don't give a simple answer like "bible reading and prayer or going to church", go in depth, how do you prepare yourself, what sort of things do you go through in prayer? what approach do you take to the bible to have this experiential communion with God?

The predictable response:

[U]ntil one more experienced and able comes along, I hope this suggestion will suffice: consider the words of Paul to the Corinthians -- "We walk by faith, and not by sight." Though the term "presence of God" could be taken in diverse senses, it is too much connected with Charismatic and "non-ordinary means" understandings. The fact of the matter is that Christ has ascended into heaven, and it is now through the bond of the Spirit that we now have fellowship or communion with him. We do not seek a visual ("by sight" -- or any other senses, for that matter) encounter with God, but we seek him through his Word and his other ordinary means, whether Public or Private (prayer and the sacraments), wherein he hear his Word and receive it in faith. We should not be seeking some mysterious "presence" of him apart from this.

Once regenerated we have the Holy Spirit in us, yet we grieve the Holy Spirit. This is because we can't handle having the Holy Spirit in us beyond our very limited capacity. Only Jesus was given the Spirit "without measure." He could handle it. You see from this that there is *degree* regarding having the Holy Spirit within you.

When Muslims pray five times a day what do they do afterwards? They emerge on the streets really, really angry. Pumping fists in the air, declaring jihad against...whatever. They then go home and beat up women.

This happens to most everybody who practices the presense of God, by whatever name, to whatever degree.

That is, until you increase your limits.

But you have to provoke your limits to then be able to make efforts to increase your limits.

No getting around a certain amount of out-of-control behavior. Just ask God for guidance while you're in the training wheels stage.

So how is it done?

The practice of presence. Presence itself. In the Old Testament a person of God would say: "I am here." Or: "Here I am." They would say this when in or coming into the presence of God. It is simple presence.

One has to have a basic level of self-observation in your inner being to be able to effect it, but one supposes regeneration gives this to one. An observing 'I'.

Practically speaking 1.) it involves a kind of divided attention where one is aware of an object, a thing, an event, and one is also at the same time aware of oneself *being aware* of that thing. Whether it's external to you or internal. When a cat is looking at a mouse it is only aware of the mouse, one direction. If the cat suddenly becomes aware of itself being aware of the mouse then that is a different state. Two directions of consciousness. The former is a state of identification; the latter is a state of non-identification. In biblical terms the fear of man vs. the fear of God (I know that sounds completely out of left field, yet I'll keep it in anyway).

Practically speaking 2.) it involves a higher-perspective 'I am here' type of *feeling.* Like when sometimes you get a feeling as if you are in your body for the first time. "Hey, I'm in a body..." Or when you ponder death, or your own death. Or galaxies. Or sometimes when you are in completely new surroundings, like when a tourist in a different country (it wears off pretty quick, but for a while you will feel this that I'm describing). Something that takes you out of the mundane impressions all around you and gives you a higher perspective in time and space and everything else.

Practically speaking 3.) it involves an awareness of one's body and five senses and one's surroundings. Here I am, in this street (in this room, walking to the store, talking to this person, etc.).

Basically being awake in the moment in an 'I am here' sense while also not being in a state of identification with your surroundings, which is our normal state, which is waking sleep.

What this practice does (if you can do it first, then hold it for any amount of time) is it accumulates a more refined energy into you. Higher impressions, higher influence, higher energy. This higher energy is more flammable than what one is use to operating with. If you're still a crude engine this more refined fuel will eventually explode in flames inside you. Now you know your limit.

Be careful practicing this. Don't get yourself in a prison cell. If you think it's evil, it's probably not for you. Because it could very well be.

Real practitioners of it will tell you (often from hard-earned trial and fail) that prayer is a necessary part of it. Provoking your limits is provoking your limits though, and if you want to extend your limits you have to provoke your limits, but you can ask God to help you and give you guidance and to mitigate your failures and so on. Keep you out of trouble. It's a battlefield, and if you're not use to the spiritual battlefield you will find yourself naked (no armor) and naive and ignorant and weak on the battlefield. The truth is only God can protect you and get you through the beginning stages anyway. But being aware of that is helpful in and of itself.

You practice this presence for duration, depth, and frequency.

You can really only know what it is by seeing its opposite which is, again, waking sleep. Human beings' normal state. I.e. you have to make an aim to be awake. Then once you inevitably fall back into a state of waking sleep you then will eventually remember the aim you made, and it is *then* that you can see what waking sleep really is. It's where you were when you forgot your aim. Like, "I'm going to be awake as I walk to the store." Then, four hours later, it comes to you that you totally forgot your aim, and that you fell back into waking sleep somewhere in the midst of that walk to the store. Now you know what your normal state is and how hard it is to be awake. Be present.

I've spoken too much because one needs a lot of knowledge of themselves to do this. Yet one can read my book lists in the margin and see which one stands out (what doesn't belong?).

. . .

Oh, *why* would one practice such a thing? One wouldn't, generally. One doesn't, usually. But if one is going to be an effective spiritual warriour; and if one is going to truly be able to *stand* on that evil day (your physical death, or even every moment of your life) then increasing your limits (increasing level of being) is what a soldier, a warrior, of Christ does. A prophet, priest, and king.

Presence is an eschatological act. A vertical connection with God in the moment. It's a conscious shock. It's unusual. You practice it to raise your normal level (waking sleep) to a conscious level. If that sounds new agey, just entertain the possibility that not everything that sounds new agey is actually new agey. Calvin was a bare foot mystic compared to modern Reformed seminary graduates.