The 7 Levels of Experiencing God, Level 1

Often at times when I feel the profound presence of God, a feeling that can only be described as: Goodness: in its most pure, undeniable & desirable form, I think about the levels of closeness I have experienced, the levels that others have experienced, and ultimately the levels I and others will experience. I invite you with me as I explore what I call the 7 levels of experiencing God, each step is deeper and more profound than the one before, and all but the last level make the soul desperately thirst for more of the same, until that last level is reached.

Level 1: For the Beauty of the Earth

Listen to this while reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtXc7q_2Nek&feature=related

Romans 1:20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

This level of experiencing God is the most common to man, for God is so merciful that he offers himself in this way even to those whom he has not elected as his children. 

It would seem that every sense that a human is capable of, can be used to experience a profound goodness on earth. With our eyes we can experience the realm of visible light, a swirling array of God's passionate outpouring ranging from the cold, solid, translucent blue purity of the ice cathedrals (and they ARE cathedrals, because their purpose is to glorify God, and they certainly do not fail)

 To the warm, comforting, rejuvenating light of a sunset/rise.

     Not just any light is beautiful. Our world could have been filled with plain solid colors that conflict and compete with their surroundings.  But instead we find that almost every scene in untouched nature is perfectly balanced for near maximum visual beauty, containing numerous scenes involving every spectrum of visible light smoothly fading into its opposite.

All things on earth could have been one color, as they are on most of the other known planets. Like Mars, for instance which is almost entirely rust red. While beautiful to observe from Earth, it would be rather drab to inhabit such a place with no variance of color.

Our planet could have been that way, but God exists, and he knew which planet we would live on, so he gave us one with every imaginable combination of colors.

     With our mouths we taste, at the most enjoyable times, a conglomeration of chemicals which eaten separately would be disgusting, but when arranged so beautifully by a culinary artist as to be working together towards perfection as do the notes of a piece of music, can bring an equal delight to a person as a well-written song. But food also quenches our hunger, a sign God gave us so we would know that there is also something that quenches the hunger of the soul. And don't fail to notice that all that we eat was once living, that for our hunger to be quenched something had to die, it is the same for the hunger of our souls.  Have you ever thought: "Mmm, that tastes good!" That's because IT IS good. It didnt have to be this way, there might have been nothing on earth that tastes good to us. But God exists, therefore good exists.

     Our sense of smell gives us insight into the purity of things.  When you hear someone talk about going outside for some fresh air, they are yearning for something of purity, something relieving. When we smell a fresh stream flowing by a wise old mountain,

or the mist of a mighty crashing wave, or the healthy scent of a pine forest we are smelling goodness, and without God there would be no goodness.

     Nothing is closer to the human heart than the sense of touch. When we are emotionally broken, when talking about it does nothing to ease our deepest pain, sometimes a loving arm wrapped around us is the most powerful medicine on earth. Sometimes words can never speak with the power needed for the moment, and all that is left is to embrace.

It is our final line of sensory perception for determining if something is real. Even when the disciple Thomas saw Jesus resurrected, he did not believe it until he could feel the wounds of the crucifixion with his hands. (John 20:27) 

In the cold of winter we feel the biting on our skin, in the summer the scalding heat, but it's because of these times of pain that we recognize in spring and autumn the good. You should note that this is also one fundamental explanation of why God blesses us with suffering, because we would not recognize perfection without imperfection. Have you ever walked outside, felt warm all-over, but just as you thought it was going to feel hot a perfect breeze rolled in and cooled you down by that one degree, and you thought, "Mmm, that feels good" That is because IT IS good. It didnt have to be, there might have been nothing on earth that feels good, but God exists, and therefore, so does goodness.

     I dont remember who said it but there is a quote about music that goes like this: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." 

And it's true. I can not describe the vastness, the deepness, that unique motion, rhythm, harmony, the finality of its closure, the hopefulness, the passion that can only be said through music itself. No one can ever describe music adequately with words so I can only remind you of how it has made you feel. I know you have felt it because I have felt it. Music, the language we receive through hearing, has the capability to reach straight through our bodies and right into our souls. Do you remember the last time you listened to a beautiful and profound song, and you felt like you were on the edge of something magnificent. Like this song had brought you to a place so good and true, that if you could... Oh!, if you could just go a little further!, you would be filled with everything the human heart has ever longed for!

Well, Im telling you now that this is the essence of God embodied in sound itself and placed there by the creator of sound at the beginning of time. For those of us who know God, we feel his presence in the music, and we long for more of him, for heaven, where the music will have reached perfection, and its depth and beauty will not merely reach the edge of fulfilled and perfect magnificence, but cross over into a previously unknown galaxy of immaculate gleaming luminescent aura of sounds.  For those who do not know God, they feel the inner yearning brought on by the music, but dont know where or if there is any fulfillment to it.  It didnt have to be this way. God could have made man deaf or heartless, where music would have no effect on him. But he gave us music because nothing is stronger, nothing more precisely in tune with the language of our souls and able to communicate that we are in need of God and nothing else will satisfy.  If God did not exist and love us, it would be absurd to imagine that through random events in the universe, a living creature could be created and molded to be so deeply moved and impassioned by such a thing as organized sound. But God does exist, and he placed his stamp directly on music. When you hear music that moves you, when you feel you have journeyed to the edge of pure gleaming magnificence through its sound, it is then that you know what it is like (at the same level that holding a grain of sand is knowing what it is like to be standing at the ocean shore) to be in the very presence of God.

Level 1 is experiencing God as he reveals himself through nature.
Level 2 coming soon.

Why intelligent design can not be possible

For Christians, we believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent. There can be no limitation to God's power, otherwise he would not be God, because a greater God would be conceivable. So when discussing matters of creation, it is thoroughly demeaning to God if we use the term Intelligent design. The term intelligent suggests that the creator had some level of processing power to solve problems or accomplish goals.  But this can not be.  If the creator had to think for one minute about how to create the universe, he would be a limited God. How intelligent would you have to be to create the universe? An IQ of 1,000? Or 10,000,000,000? It doesn't matter. If the intelligence level can be measured at all, it is limited in its range of possibilities.

So by following this logical path we find that God can not be intelligent. He spends no time thinking, otherwise, in the time he was discerning the solution to a problem, he would not be in control of the things of which he was dealing till he figured it out. So imagine that: a being who does not think, but only knows.  There is no thing more difficult than another for him to deal with. Figuring out how to create a universe is no different than grade school math because there is no figuring involved. No logical steps. Since God supersedes logic, it is not him that must follow logical paths, it is this: that whatever system that results from God's will is born in logicality because God chose, (at least in our dimension) to make logic the ruler of all thoughts. And intelligence is the level of effectiveness by which one responds logically to a given problem or goal.

So for the Christian, intelligent design is not the appropriate term for God's work. It should be called perfect design, because there was no intelligence involved in its making. If there were, then perhaps God could have thought a little longer about it and made it better than it was, and if that is even in the realm of possibility, then God made a mistake and is no God at all.  His creation is perfect, because it is made instantly in the exact form he wishes it to be at the moment he wills it. Don't make the mistake of thinking this creation is flawed because of evil or sin or biological disorders, those things are and must be within the order God set them to be because: If anything ever happens that is not exactly what God wanted to happen, it means he has failed to accomplish his desires, and he is weak.  So while the theory of Intelligent Design continues to grow as a valid and logical model for explaining the origins of matter and life, it's name is ultimately illogical, for the one who created time must exist outside and above time, and therefore must spend no time thinking. 

The one who created matter and energy must be outside of and above matter and energy, and therefore can not even put forth effort into a desire or else he would be subject to it.

All reality instantaneously exists in the exact form that God desires, if it does not, he is not God. Because intelligence equals power of thought over time, and any time that passes without having the direct desires of God fulfilled is a limit to his power, Intelligent Design is impossible.