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I am in the process of reading a book by Christa Black Gifford called "Heart Made Whole: Turning your unhealed pain into your greatest strength". At the end of each chapter there are some questions she asks. I honestly am having a difficult time answering them. She asks "How do you see, feel, hear and experience your heavenly Father. Is He trustworthy or not; is He distant, cruel and angry; or loving, merciful and kind?" She says, "You will relate to God in the way that you perceive Him." I don't really have much of an imagination, so I don't really see Jesus so much. I have the feeling that the Father is very loving, and because I relate to Him as my Daddy-God, I feel secure in His presence. I had one vision, I guess, you'd say of Jesus where I was a little child and He was carrying me and He was laughing as we were looking up at the clouds and making pictures out of them. I do not remember what it was I read at that time that stimulated that vision, but I know it had to do with healing a neglectful childhood. I still remember it and it fills me with great joy and a wonder of His love. I do not have any picture of the Holy Spirit, because I am just beginning to be more aware of His presence, and so I have to remind myself to ask for His help or words or wisdom, etc. I was hoping some of you may enlighten me further or even share your struggles relating to God as well.

I feel led by the Lord to start a new thread on this topic for the benefit of others despite my really not wanting to do so. You see when I touch on things that might step on religious toes I usually end up getting flak coming my way and I don't like that. But in line with wanting to do what the Lord might want me to do I must speak out that which He lays on my heart to speak about no matter what baloney might come my way. So...I would like to open a discussion on emotionally experiencing God. There is a difference between knowing about God and emotionally experiencing Him. That difference is akin (or like) some things in the natural world that show the difference between knowing something and experiencing it. The Lord Himself laid on my heart how these things mirror what I am trying to say about the difference between knowing about God and experiencing Him. For example this morning as I was walking to where I am now...something worked it's way into my shoe and toward the front where my toes were. A tiny piece of branch or something similar. I knew it was there in my shoe. But I also could feel it. Against my skin. The feeling of it against my skin is what motivated me to stop, untie my shoe, shake it out, and get rid of it. And let me tell you. It's was HOT, HOT, HOT. I would not have stopped had I not felt the foreign object against my skin. I also experienced an itch on my arm from who knows what. But it was itchy in a spot for an instance. I knew the itch was there but I was motivated to scratch that itch because I felt it. Both these examples highlight for me how we can know various things about God, like His love, but not be moved by it to do much of anything until and if we experience it emotionally. Head knowledge by itself is fine. As a starting point. But we are to apply faith to our head knowledge and move from mental assent to experience of God through and by that faith. I remember when I first took the step of dancing before the Lord quite a number of years ago. That was very intimidating for me to do. There was a need to break through emotional inhibition in the presence of God. Perhaps men reading this can relate to that more than women since men seem to be more emotionally inhibited than women are. Emotional inhibition is a factor of our fallen nature I think. For in truth, if we are confident in the love and acceptance of God no such thing should even exist. We should as freely dance before the Lord as King David did. In private or public. As an expression of joy and worship of God. But to break through such emotional inhibition requires a step of faith. An act of the will. To do what we would be able to do just fine...without emotional inhibition. To act in line with what we would do without emotional inhibition. And so...wanting to grow closer to the Lord...I took the brand new step, at least for me, to start dancing before Him in the privacy of my apartment. It was rather intimidating. It's hard to describe how I felt. It was like a mixture between embarrassment (me, a grown man, dancing before a God I can't even see and looking silly doing it...I mean no one taught me in some sermon how to dance before God LOL) and also anticipation as to what it would be to act in an emotionally uninhibited manner before God. That was just one instance of when I stepped out in faith, faith in His love and acceptance of me, to act as a child before Him and express myself emotionally to Him without letting the usual inhibitions keep me from experiencing God. That overall time in my life was a time of great release. Of great emotional release. To experiencing far more of God than I had ever experienced of Him before. The first time I lifted my hands in worship to God publicly was also such a time. That was not just emotional inhibition but the fear of man too in that I did not want to look silly to others by such an outward and visible expression of worship (i.e. feelings of gratitude and reverence) to God. It just wasn't very manly I suppose LOL. But when I took the step to lift my hands and express worship to God that way it was a most wonderfully liberating thing. An awesome thing. For God rewarded my step of faith and lavished His presence on me in such a way both then and later in private that made me fall all the more in love with Him. One person called such moments thresholds of fear. I found that going through such thresholds, both of fear and emotional inhibition, by faith...caused my relationship with God to blossom. I was putting faith into practice by doing things in line, not with who I thought myself to be or thought "proper" or anything like that, but rather with who I was before God. Accepted and loved all the way. Such that I did not need to concern myself with looking silly to the Lord and could respond and be with Him in a completely uninhibited way. If there is interest in this topic as a matter of discussion I will share more and go over some verses that might relate to this. I'll leave it at that for now. Carlos