BitterSweetLife

One theme that comes up on this blog from time to time is the difficulty of describing spiritual experience. Talking about theology—the character and ways of God as revealed in the Bible—is one thing. But existential spirituality is a malleable, subjective topic. That being said, I’m often impressed when I find someone who describes a God-encounter with intrepid certainty. Take Brother Lawrence, for example. Lindsay and I came across this excerpt from Practicing the Presence of God earlier this evening:

At other times so soon as I apply myself to prayer, I feel my whole spirit and my whole soul lift itself up without any trouble or effort of mine; and it remains as it were in elevation, fixed firm in God as in its center and its resting place.

What do you think? Have you had similar experiences in meeting with Christ? I’d take exception to at least one word in Lawrence’s paragraph: “itself.” On the rare occasions when I feel God dramatically lightening the load on my soul (Lawrence’s account strikes me as dramatic) I know most definitely that it’s Christ doing the lifting, not my soul lifting “itself” (by its own bootstraps). Thoughts?

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