Getting Personal

On a handful of occasions, I have been surprised by someone who seems religiously progressive and open-minded as well as open to interfaith dialogue, who then says something like, "I feel bad for Jews who can't really have a personal relationship with God." The first time this happened, I got the impression that the person didn't actually know anyone who was Jewish, that her notion of a Jewish person was a mistaken caricature she had picked up somewhere.  Still, her remark startled me.

Today's morning psalm begins:

   I love the LORD, because he has heard
          my voice and my supplications.    Because he inclined his ear to me,
          therefore I will call on him as long as I live.    The snares of death encompassed me;
          the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
          I suffered distress and anguish.    Then I called on the name of the LORD:
          “O LORD, I pray, save my life!”
   Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
          our God is merciful.
   The LORD protects the simple;
          when I was brought low, he saved me. 

This hardly sounds like the words of someone for whom God is a distant concept or unapproachable deity. And if you read through the psalms, you will discover cries to God that many Christians wouldn't dare utter for fear of being irreverent,  or perhaps simply out of fear.  I've known many church folk who could never say, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" unless they were reading it from the Bible. But of course some ancient psalmist felt close enough to God to shake a fist and demand an answer from God long before Jesus borrowed the psalm while on the cross.

As a Christian, I certainly believe, among other things, that Jesus is a unique window on God, an encounter with God not available otherwise. But that is a far crying from saying no one else can draw close to God in a personal sense.  In fact, I'm intrigued by the question of what constitutes a personal relationship with God.  What allows someone to feel an intimacy with God, to engage God in a personal sense? 

It seems to me that any sort of personal relationship has a significant experiential component.  We don't really have relationships with people we've never met, talked to, or done things with. We have to respond to one another, react to one another, and so on.  You have to go through things together to really get to know someone, which is why the first year of marriage is often tumultuous. The couple is getting to know one another and working out a deep relationship with each other.

Does God inclined her ear to me?  I can't really know unless God has responded to me.  Does Jesus save me?  Hard to say unless I've experienced that in some way. Simply believing a few things as part of a contract that promises me heaven in some hereafter is not personal, and it's not a relationship.

I love the LORD.  My God, why have you forsaken me?  Exactly the sort of things you would expect someone who gets personal with God to say.

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