The greatest blessing in the New Creation will be to see God and be close to Him. Nothing will be better than being in His presence. We long for this and endure sacrifice now so we can present ourselves as pure when Jesus returns and we see God. So shouldn’t we also seek God’s presence in this mortal life? Shouldn’t we desire as much of God as He is willing to give now?
Of course we should. But there is a question as to priority. How high should we prioritize the presence of God? First we need to ask what we mean when we say the “presence of God.” If someone asks us directly what this means we might say we just want whatever He wills. But the reality is that we want the spiritual sweetness of being in the presence of God. Even just beholding the majesty of God without His active love would be a great pleasure. If the presence of God did not have great pleasure connected with it then we would not crave it. Remember that we already know that God is present with us because Scripture tells us, so it must be that we want to feel His presence. So how high should this priority be in our spiritual life?
“If someone asks us directly what this means we might say we just want whatever He wills. But the reality is that we want the spiritual sweetness of being in the presence of God.”
This leads to the next question which is: “What does Scripture say about the priority of seeking the felt presence of God now?” Not much. There are a handful of passages that might be understood as directing us to seek the sweet presence of God. But there are many more that instruct us to seek God’s will, such as the Lord’s prayer. And as far as stated priorities in Scripture, loving God is clearly stated to be the highest priority, Matt 22:34:40. Loving others is also expressly stated as a top priority (Gal. 5:14; I John 3:23). There are no such scriptures about seeking the felt presence of God.
Unfortunately, in practice, seeking the presence of God is the highest priority of the spiritual life of many devoted Christians. They might tell you that loving God is more important but their hearts are really most attached to seeking the sweet presence of God. This is where they have a big problem. This partially hidden desire for spiritual sweetness is spiritual hedonism. We can also call it a spiritual sweet tooth. It is wanting to feel good more than wanting to become like Christ and desire whatever God wills. Thus, the self-centeredness of the hedonism blocks spiritual growth. It is a seductive trap that requires intentional resistance. It is usually very subtle but very destructive.
One of the problems with fervently seeking the felt presence of God is that it is easy for us to generate our own false “presence of God” feelings. When we aren’t feeling the presence, our desire for the feeling causes us to create the feeling inside ourselves. This is also a subtle process that we may not notice. It creates a barrier to connecting with God because we think we are relating with God but we are really relating to a false perception.
“It is a seductive trap that requires intentional resistance. It is usually very subtle but very destructive.”
John of the Cross (d. 1591) gave some descriptions of spiritual hedonism that help us see it in ourselves. These thoughts are found in Dark Night of the Soul, book one, chapter six.) He explains that spiritual hedonism moves us to go to great lengths to sustain and magnify the spiritual sweetness we have experienced. We resist self-denial or anything that is unpleasant and are not open to correction. We do not understand that God must withhold delights so that we can grow in faith and virtue. We cannot see our own faults because we are so focused on spiritual delights. This last point might be the most destructive one because if we avoid our faults then we won’t become like Christ.
Thus, it is very important that we ask God to reveal our spiritual hedonism. But we can take comfort that we are not alone; essentially everyone has this issue. If we honestly open to God and accept what He shows us then He will start to show us. It may take awhile to uncover this but it will come in time. Then we can renounce it and focus ourselves back on the highest priority.
Even when we renounce spiritual hedonism we will still have a desire for God’s sweet presence that is appropriate because God made us that way. So we also have the challenge of letting go of our grip on making it happen now, even though we desire it. This problem is compounded when we are truly experiencing the sweetness of God; those are the times when we are tempted to unconsciously decide to make the sweetness our top priority. When we refocus on God’s will and Christformation it will be easier to let go of our grip. Then the desire dwells in us but does not change our priorities. Whether we feel sweetness or not we do not lose our focus.
Remember that it is okay to seek God’s felt presence if we do it as a lower priority. It’s fine to travel to a place where God is moving. But wisdom should guide us to keeping our focus on seeking God’s will, loving him and embracing Christformation regardless of feelings. God’s kingdom won’t be complete until the next age. In this age we walk by faith and only know God’s presence dimly (I Cor. 13:12). In this way our desire grows and transforms us until we are fully in His presence.
