I was driving home from work recently and I had one of those moments when the awesome grace of God really hit me. It wasn’t a physical event or experience; it was a spiritual experience - what you might call an experience through the interrelation of my earthly consciousness and God’s heavenly powers. 

 

How such an experience would affect others, I cannot say. For me, it was a moment which caused me to become awe-struck - it was God’s grace pouring out on me - a reassurance that He continues to give freely - far beyond our deserts. He answers virtually all my prayers, and the ones that He does not answer, I know He is doing so because of my inability to see an outcome that will eventuate in my betterment. In other words, He will either answer the prayer when I am ready for it in the future, or perhaps more likely, He is withholding His action because He has a different plan - one which He knows I do not, at present, realise my need for. 

 

This interplay of balance works in a rather marvellous way, for we do not deserve the things that God gives us, yet because of our undesert we learn to love and appreciate Him more. The fact that He gives far beyond what we deserve is testament to His awesome grace.

 

There is a second interrelation that I have not yet mentioned, and it comes in two parts.  In the first place, God gives us assurance even beyond our own motivations; for those who become scared, anxious or worried, He offers you Himself - a panacea - a stupendous influence made manifest, which percolates into all areas of Christian life. In the second place, God offers us Himself in a very different way to the first - a way to communicate in the deepest and most personal privacy; that is, the opportunity to come to Him in solitude and connect with Him in spiritual bliss. And in this contemporary age of busyness, solitude is often a rare thing; in fact, I would say it is something which many of us do not find enough time for. 

 

For hundreds of years, many philosophers have posited contentions that time in solitude is a quite dangerous and precarious thing. They say time alone in which the mind has opportunities to travel is no good thing. All my experiences tell me just the opposite; for there is nothing better than the opportunities in which all the glory of those silent moments occur; in which we are able to escape from our outward selves for somewhere we can be alone with nature, alone with the heavens, alone with God. It is only in these moments that one truly feels a sense of understanding the world and all it should be. Amidst the simple beauty of brief solitude, we can, if we put our minds to it, fully experience God’s love through our own ability to receive, if heaven allows it, what is really going to be ours. It is these moments that God meant for us to experience Him in the fullest sense that we could find moments where we are able to respond emotionally to being alive with Christ. 

 

For those who disagree, I should tell you that all your life you have been searching for moments like these; moments when you could almost feel that the breath of paradise called you forth; as if you were standing face to face with God Himself at the gates of Heaven. All those cornering glimpses of what might lie ahead, they were disguised prayers all along. The obscure silence that fell upon you when something beautiful was happening; the sound of angels playing harps; the tear that fell out of your eye when you saw somebody else’s pain; the tear that fell out of your eye when you saw somebody else’s joy; your willingness to die for somebody who meant the world to you. These were all ways that God was communicating with you. All the time, without perhaps realising, you were asking questions about your existence, and for every smile and every teardrop, you were receiving answers to those questions. 

 

Belief in the One who can reveal to each of us the true affirmations of the soul is not going to work unless we are ready to handle the emotional aspects of servitude. The many paradisiacal valleys of the world, of art and music, of architecture and dreams, of poetry and literature, of philosophy and religion, all make the point as clear as possible; the soul cannot blossom in the absence of a valley.

 

If you do not want paradise, you do not belong to the human race that I know. And if you are at all anxious about this concept - do not worry for too long, for nearly all pathways to God start with the true realisation that something in your life is wrong. I have never seen atheism miraculously heal people, nor dry the eyes of those who think that they are without hope. I have never seen atheism offer forgiveness to those who think that they are beyond forgiveness, nor salvation to those who seem beyond salvation. I have never seen atheism offer grace, mercy and compassion to all those who ask it. In fact, atheism denies all human souls the one thing that is necessary for those souls to breathe unhindered. 

 

For too long, men and women have found, to their huge cost, that all tenets of non-Christian thinking are merely diversions; obstacles that impede their spiritual growth. But deep down the soul knows that we can have access to God’s amazing grace, for He will not only accept joyously, all penitent men and women, He will even go out in search of intransigent and obstinate people who think they are better off without Him. 

 

God sees all our thoughts and actions in a multi-dimensional way. He is well aware that our sound judgement is often clouded by false systems and influences; that preconceptions smear our looking glass; that abstractions taint our true wishes and desires; that the burden of pride is often too much for us. And one of the best things He has done for us is to withdraw from our cognition, one of the primary senses of the divine mystery, for we all know full well that it would be wasted on us right now. 

 

Just as the sun shines through the forest, and just as the heart is shaken by a transient moment of beauty or vulnerability; we too, when the day of salvation comes, become fully aware that we have been seekers all our lives. And that is what being a Christian is all about. That there will be difficult times, no one doubts. But Christianity offers the only real hope that a person can have; it offers, in the long run, all the answers to all of life’s problems.