Experience

Many ways are offered to help us learn from experience.  Journaling, spiritual direction, assessing for change, assessing for stability, informal conversations with friends, programs that help us behavior differently.  There are so many ways experience is folded into our everyday live, that we may miss how God communes with us through experience.

God shares with us through experience when we are in a safe place to learn.  We need to feel beneath us that support of God's presence before we are ready to take in our experience as holy. That safe place may not be in the moment when we are challenged and perhaps even feeling incompetent. (Adults hate feeling incompetent.  In fact they will reject learning in order not to feel incompetent.) That safe place may be later when our breathing returns to normal, we can find a quiet place in our selves where we have access to God's support, and, when we can assess what has happened.

God shares with us through experience when that safe place, and the challenge, support, assessment come together.  Challenge, support, and assessment are key concepts in leading programs of leadership development to refine skill and build on personal strength.  However, challenge, support, and assessment are also the key concepts of discerning the personal awareness, the personal acceptance, and the inner spaciousness to learn what God shares with you.

These concepts will be expanded in future blog entries.  For today as a summary, an experience challenges your emotions, beliefs, or, capacity.  The support of God's presence opens new pathways to understanding that challenge.  And, as you reflect you assess the why, when, and hows of your connection, or not connection, with God in that experience.

Find your safe place today, and, reflect on moments when God shared with you through your experience.