Finding God in Everything

Spiritual directors are fond of saying we find God in all things and all places, which means each of us has experienced the power and spirit of God in some way. A key aspect of spiritual direction is assisting people in uncovering their own awareness of the Holy.

Language for God

Here’s some of the language people use to describe how they experience God, even though they may not yet name it as an experience of God.

• find that every time I go running, my mind seems to clear, and I find insight for whatever problem I’m working on.
• When my baby smiles and looks me right in the eyes, I just melt and feel incredibly alive.
• Something about that photograph of the destruction of the earthquake moved me to appreciate my life even more.
• Looking out over the Grand Canyon, I felt at one with the universe.
• I was so grateful for that good report from the doctor that I sang all the way home.
• I feel a presence, a loving presence, every time I speak out against injustice.
• The love I feel for my partner is beyond all my understanding. It feels eternal.

None of those statements mentions God, yet each describes what can be seen as an experience of God.

The Trouble with Language

People today are cautious about using too much religious language—and for good reason. They may have been abused by people who hurt them in the name of God. They may feel so humbled by their experience of an unseen reality that they do not feel qualified to name it as an experience of God. Our religious language is too small to adequately express some of these experiences. That’s OK. We don’t have to invoke God’s name all the time to speak about the Holy.

So Where Do We Look?

We find God in those places in our life where we experience:

Deep love

Longing

Transcendence

Insight

Life

Presence

Gratitude

Patience

Kindness

Joy

Peace

The list could go on, but you get the idea. When we pay attention to the attributes of God, we develop “eyes to see and ears to hear” where God’s Spirit is moving in the world.

For more on awareness of God and how to assist others in discovering it, see Chad Abbott and Teresa Blythe’s book Incline Your Ear: Cultivating Spiritual Awakening in Congregations by Fortress press.