Views toward Reids Peak from Bald Mountain in the Uinta Mountains of Utah
There is a debate going around Christian circles today regarding our previous experiences. Actually, the debate has been circulating for decades, but by now it seems to be at a feverish pitch.
Views from the Cinder Cone in Lassen Volcanic National Park, California
“When it comes to your faith, don’t trust your experience,” one side says. “Experience can deceive you, because it’s based on this world and not on God. Experience is dangerous!”
Yucca in the Valley of Dreams, New Mexico
The other side disagrees. “Our experience of God gives us a foundation to know Him,” they say. “After all, the Bible is a book full of peoples’ experiences in God!”
A thistle along the “Vista Trail” on the coast of California
And so somehow even those who believe experience is dangerous have put their trust in the experiences of others, as written out in the Bible.
Waterfalls below Hidden Valley in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, California
But when the end of the day comes, it’s not whether or not we trust experience that is the question; it’s how we live our lives and how we use those experiences – or don’t use them – to live for our King.
Mt. Shuksan from the Lake Ann Trail, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington
I’ve known people who went out to the wilderness, had a bad experience, and who said, “Never again!” Or, worse, who read about someone else’s bad experience and said, “Not me, ever!”
Road to Holzwarth Historic Site in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
They are trusting in their own experience, or in the experiences of others. They’ve put so much faith in those experiences that they are directing the course of their lives off of those limited experiences.
Along the Navajo Trail in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
In our experiences – both when we’re out in the wilderness or when we’re living out our everyday lives – we can choose whether we will allow our experiences to direct the course of our lives. To an extent, they will affect us – I have experienced the mountains and I love them, so I return to them instead of hiking elsewhere. But to another extent, we can’t allow our experience to be the only thing that directs our lives. I love the mountains, but when God told me to go to the desert last year, I jumped in with both feet.
The Coleman Glacier from Heliotrope Divide in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Washington
Our experience is only as useful as the extent to which our experience is surrendered to God.
Trail to Linkins Lake, Colorado
There have been times, even recently, where my experience said, “You have failed at that every single time you’ve tried it; better not try again.” But God said, “Do it again.” Surrender was more important than experience – though I’ll admit I took what I had learned by failing and applied it to the situation!
Spray Park in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
When our experience and God’s will are clashing, it’s our choice who or what we will listen to. When we do surrender to God, it’s a comfort to know that He has been with us through the entirety of our experience – and that He has taken that into consideration and still knows that His plan is the best for us.
