How far are you away from God?
 Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight considers what can be done to lessen the distance between God and the self.
In the year 2000, about a year before I became a Christian, a friend asked me how far I was away from God, and I remember thinking how peculiar it is that when one confers images of distance (as with terms such as ‘how far away?’) it is enough to perturb any of us. For the boy preparing for his exams, the question ‘How far are you from being ready?’ is perhaps the most daunting of all. For the man who knows he is not very moral, the question ‘How far are you from being a moral person?’ is perhaps the most daunting for him. But it is equally true that for the boy who is as best prepared for his exams as he can be, the question ‘How far are you from being ready?’ is much less daunting, in fact, he may even be able to contemplate it with equanimity. Furthermore, the man who knows he lives a life of high moral rectitude has much less to worry about when he hears the question ‘How far are you from being a moral person?’ than the man who pays less attention to good morals. In an identification parade it is only the guilty man who has anything to worry about.
Given the foregoing analysis, it seems clear that one’s reaction to the question ‘How far are you away from God?’ depends very much on how we are living our lives. The man who knows he is living a very good Christian life, doing his very best in putting God first at all times, has much less to worry about than the man who is living the opposite way. I knew when I was asked the question all those years ago that I had quite a lot of distance to make up, and I remember my contemplating the answer to that question helped me in my quest to make up the lost ground. Although for each of us the question ‘How far am I away from God?’ is essential as an isolated question that both unbelievers and believers must find themselves asking at some point in their life, it is also important as a continuum - a question we must frequently ask ourselves to ensure that we are growing to our full potential.
I do not mean that we should become a bunch of neurotics, but if we heed St Paul’s conviction for dying each day to sin and bad influences (1 Corinthians 15:31), practising self-discipline and being mindful of anything that impedes our growth with Christ, the question ‘How far am I from God?’, or perhaps more importantly, ‘Am I close enough to Him?’ should be a continuum - a daily effort to get as close as we can to the perfection that Christ talked about and wished for us (Matthew 5:48).
All who know Christ know that the message of Christianity is one of extreme positivity, yet equally, one must not be surprised to see that for unbelievers the message is often one of negativity (sometimes extreme negativity), in particular, for those who have had bad past experiences with Christians or the church or faith schools or a bad ‘Christian’ upbringing.
Once one hears the good news of Christ, there is the potential for great things ahead, but strangely one does not automatically conquer their deep felt resistance to a change of this magnitude. The good news is unsettling; I suppose it is not so different to hearing from your doctor one morning that you require an operation. The news is unsettling compared to your perception of your own health yesterday - but the news is good in the sense that you can be made better; the operation will stop your illness or infirmity from becoming even worse. How a man receives the news and what he does with it next depends, of course, on who he is and how past experiences have influenced him and shaped his thinking.
 Therefore, it is not surprising that unbelievers’ perception of Christianity is very different to that of Christians - after all, both perception and pleasure are two things which become entangled quite often and produce knotty philosophies. Our perception muddles our pleasure and our pleasure muddles our perception. Let me explain what I mean with an illustration.
There are different levels of pleasure that we can experience and they are put into a hierarchy by our perception of the comparative pleasure one will receive compared to other pleasures. So we have pleasure in the lowest form, say, pleasure from hearing a good piece of music or winning £10 on the lottery, and as we move up the hierarchy we have better pleasures; perhaps writing a novel, or forging friendships; and even better, being in love, and an equal in hierarchy (albeit different) pleasure, watching our children grow into wonderful little creatures. But notice that when perception comes into the equation things change a little. We might win £10 on the lottery and we might also have lots of great friends, but equally, our perception might predict a much greater life if we were to win one million pounds on the lottery. And if we did win a million pounds and we ended up rich, but lonely, snobbish and disdainful (therefore unhappy), our perception of pleasure would have been in the beginning very different to our experience. Our perception of the joys we thought we would experience from wealth may turn out to very different in actuality. From the inside, great wealth might turn out to be cruelly deceptive, or it might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to a person. Whichever it turns out to be, it isn’t difficult to see that the wealth itself is secondary to the qualities of the person acquiring it - that is to say, whether wealth turns a person into a saint or a wretched person depends on the person not the wealth - therefore if a man is determined to be the best and most moral person he can, using his wealth for good things and becoming a better person because of it, the ‘becoming better’ is extricable from his finances.
If a man’s determination for the right things exceeds his distracting perceptions and his pleasures, he should be a good person. That is to say, whatever life throws at him if he is determined to live a good and happy life and be a good person, it is likely he will. If this is a good and reliably consistent pattern for life in general (and I think it is - to a large degree, life is what you make it), does it apply to the Christian faith too - that is, can one get close to Christ simply by being more like Him? In one sense, yes, in the other, no. There is no guarantee that nearness by likeness necessarily means nearness in proximity - we do not just get near to Him by being more like Him (although it is a good start). I will explain what I mean by using a childhood observation.
When I was at school our class went on a trip to Yorkshire, and I remember being on a narrow pathway high up in the hills overlooking a small village. Our physical distance from the village was approximately 500 metres. But in order to get to the village from where we were we had to follow the long path that we were on which went quite some distance away from the village (in total, approximately 1500 metres) before it twisted round to lead us back into the village. In other words, in order to walk closer to the village we had to first walk further away from it, for our pathway was the only route down to the village. Every step further away in physical proximity was leading us progressively nearer to it.
I suppose this situation could be compared to a man’s journey towards God in several ways. One could make comparisons about a man being closer to God when he is born because the world hasn’t had a chance to corrupt him - but that is not the particular comparison that I am making. My comparison is something like this. You can see your destination because of your close physical proximity to it, but you cannot reach it without taking the right road. Your close proximity shows you its location, but the path to it is going to lead you on a bit of a trek. If you become more like Christ but fail to realise that is because of Him that you making these progressive steps, you will not be much different to the unbeliever who is proud of his own moral probity and considers himself a good man by his own merits. It is only by realising who Christ is that one wishes in the proper sense to be more like Him.
Returning to the village analogy; every step along the way is bringing you closer, but all this depends on being on the right road to begin with. Along the way to your being more like Christ there is going to be many personal changes, many calls for societal changes, changes in your feelings, changes in your perception of the world and of other people - but these are all changes which are essential to the journey. The greatest distance round is the quickest way to your destination. Therefore it is not simply wanting to be more moral or even more Christ-like that will put a man on the right road, he must have a passionate will to embrace everything that God has planned for him; that is, he must surrender himself not just to the ‘good life’ and the ‘being a friendly and honest person’ and the ‘moral improvements’, he must want nothing less than the total transformation of his very being.
Thus, part of the battle, both in our witnessing, and in others coming to terms with the full measure of Christianity, is to begin the investigation the right way round, not by trying to expedite the changes before a man understands why they are required, but by asking, ’If Christianity were true how would it change your life?’ - for that is the big question one can begin with, and as a man learns more about Jesus Christ he will develop a better understanding about what the answer to that question really is and how it can be incorporated into his life.
Making changes and facing up to the big question
I asked a lad at work recently - ‘If you suddenly found out that Christianity is true how would it change your life?’. He replied - ‘It wouldn’t change it at all’. And here in this one instance we see the real crux of the theism/atheism debate and our impact and influence in the non-Christian provinces. Those who say that the revelation of Christian truth would not change their life one bit really have no grip on the reality of Christianity - they are alive only in the biological sense - every day is, by choice, just another day running down to the inevitable death of their physical self.
To all the unbelievers reading this, I think the question - If you suddenly found out that Christianity is true how would it change your life? - is the one that will most reveal to you the true nature of your present self. If your answer is much the same as my colleague’s you are destined to live your life in cognitive inertia - you are missing out on a proper understanding of what the Christian faith really is; for to understand it, even a little bit of it, is to hope beyond all hope that it is true and that the Holy Spirit will come and live inside you. If you are worried about leaving your autonomous and diverse life behind only to become homogeneously Christian, you will not be - it only seems that way from the outside. Once one realises that atheists quote The Ten Commandments and enjoy Christmas with their families just as some Christians enjoy Goethe and Halloween, then good things are happening. Good luck to all men and women, let us celebrate diversity; the last thing we want is for everyone to be the same, but we do want everyone to realise that Jesus is Lord. Homogeny only manages to make Christianity seem quite dull to the outsider - diversity and individuality should be celebrated along with the glorious collectivity and togetherness that Christianity brings.
Those who do not know about Christianity are the ones who talk the most nonsense about it. Politics is no different - how many times have you heard someone ranting about democracy or equality or egalitarianism or utilitarianism or conservatism without having the first clue about what they are talking about? Sometimes you think it frustrating but other times you think, and rightly so, ‘Why bother, I wouldn’t know where to begin’. But one mustn’t feel that way with Christianity, for however much nonsense is spoken, everyone is worth saving, however interminable the process or arduous the discussions with the most obstinate souls. Everyone is made in the image of God; everyone is a unique creation of God and should be treated with the same compassion and tenderness with which Christ treated the sinful woman in Simon’s house (Luke 7:36-50).
Whether you are a Christian reading this or whether you are an atheist or agnostic still thinking about these issues, this article about ‘likeness’ and ‘proximity’ has been about the question of where one is in relation to God, how close or far away one is, and what can be done to lessen the distance and reduce the proximity between God and the self. God has already done His bit to reduce the proximity by dying on the cross and bridging the gap between man and God. The only things stopping us from knowing Him and having a relationship with Him are the things that we ourselves have let get in the way. And however difficult or daunting this relationship seems, or however many barriers we have put up or things there are standing in the way, the only thing we have to do is ask God to help us remove them and pray that He increases our understanding of Him; for then we shall meet with the risen Christ, who bore all our sins on the cross, and He will meet us where we are and transform our lives from that moment on.
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