How I Connect With God

I had a very captivating moment with a few friends today.  We were talking about God and the creation of the stars and how marvelous it was.  How the stars are set into mathematical equations and how we see certain formations at certain time and how stars can be tracked to tell time and other sorts of phenomenons.  We sat in the freezing cold for maybe half an hour giggling and occasionally yelling in joy.  It was a beautiful time for all of us.  Good bonding and such.  I have such a huge love to learn about people so I was thriving inside. Learning how each and every person finds God in different ways.  In the end, we all huddled together and prayed and then went inside.  I love each and every one of them so much.  All in different ways.  I am blessed so much through them.  Anyways, while we were praying, I was looking up at the stars.  I have always felt that praying out loud while looking up to the sky is how I connect to God the most in prayer, especially while I am outside and I can look into the deep of the night sky. 


There are three ways I really connect with God in my life.  First, through open prayer, second through powerful worship, and third through complete and utter silence and isolation.  


Like mentioned earlier, I like pray looking up with my eyes open.  Growing up in a typical American church, I was taught to bow my head and close my eyes like everybody else, but it never really felt right.  I always felt as if I was just going with the motions.  Only recently did I take my prayer life by the horns and make it my own.  I started experimenting with how I pray.  I was trying to find the best way to speak to God.  From the growth I had experienced through Teen Focus my freshman year, I took the concept of open body positioning.  I had always noticed a significant change in my attitude through people just from the way I compose my body.  Talking with my arms behind my back or to my sides is much different than with my arms crossed or in my pockets.  I try to avoid that.  But I do like to cross my arms if I'm arguing something or trying to become more intimidating.  It's a fun thing to mess around with.  I took this whole concept and applied it to my prayer life.  Instantly, I felt a huge difference the very first time.  The conviction I felt was much deeper than before.  I was afraid because I was so vulnerable.  Something I urge people to try is to lay on your back and pray with your arms and legs spread out as if you are doing a jumping jack on the floor. It may feel silly, but I love it.  This action really makes me scared because of how vulnerable my physical position is.  It's an incredible experience.


As I continued to develop my personal relationship with Christ going through high school and now into college, I look to God more as a leader in my life.  Somebody I look to for guidance.  Where many people believe that human kind is doomed to fail without God, I believe that God created people very capable of success.  I like to see myself succeed in something on my own.  Not that I want to be separated from God, but that I think I can do something and God has given me the strengths to find what I am good at.  Because of this, I don't really like looking down and closing my eyes when I pray.  I do like bowing though, but that's a big physical thing, like laying down.  I find that opening my eyes and staring up into the sky is the best way for me.  Mentally, this is me looking to God because He is right there in my presence.  God is towering over me with honor and glory and I don't deserve it but I receive love from Him every day.  This looking up makes me feel so small and reminds me of how powerful God is.   When I used to bow my head, I felt fearful of God, and I didn't like it.  I wanted to feel capable, powerful, and created with strength. I don't like feeling helpless.  I don't think God made people to fail at life without Him.  He just desires to be with us every step of the way.  So now I pray with my hands and eyes open reaching out to God to feel his touch.  It is one of my most favorite things to do.


The second way I connect with God is through worship.  Now, in this case, I mean musical worship.  Ideally, there is an incredibly gifted band that is rocking out and blasting the music so loud that I can barely hear myself sing.  Here's the thing, I love powerful music; buildups, minor keys, loud fans, the whole thing.  I am very picky with worship music.  This factor actually is the largest part of me choosing a church home.  The speaker can be amazing, but if the worship sucks, I will most likely not attend.  When I worship, I want to be dancing.  I want to be belting out every tone I can render in a crowd of people singing along with me.  I am that guy you see in the front row with his hands raised as high as I can reach, dancing and praising God with all that I can.  Ironically, I found that the best worship experience of my life was at Camp Hammer.  The freedom that people find there is unbelievable!  When you've got 100 children and college students dancing together and raising their hands to praise God, the community in singing openly breaks me down every time.  I bawl so hard!  I just can not get over the fact of the people all singing together. It's so beautiful.


Aside from this loud concert-like music, I connect with God through silence, especially in nature.  I don't think many people today really know what silence really is.  Silence is scary, first off.  I think that because our brains are so used to noise, we are actually incapable of hearing silence.  Seriously.  You know how when you leave a concert, your ears are ringing for a few hours because they are blown out a bit? I think that this is actually what we live in everyday. We have become so accustomed to noise that our brain doesn't know how to comprehend a lack of noise.  There has only been one place I've ever heard complete silence.  That was in the mountains of Idaho while I was snowboarding.  I think that's why I see God in my life so much when I am standing at the top of snowcapped mountain peaks looking down at the vastness of the world.  I will go out of my way for hours just to find this silence.  I hike up to the highest peak of ski resorts and when I reach them, I fall flat on my back, hopefully at night so I can see the stars of the night ski, and I will hold my breath as long as I can.  I stop my breathing, moving, and anything I may do that may make the slightest sound.  I listen to nothing.  Going back the ears ringing idea, well that is what I experience there.  My ears begin to ring, as if my mind is going to a panic because there is no noise.  It's the oddest thing.  I want to be in silence all the time.  Maybe then my mind can actually hear silence.  It can actually be relaxed and enjoy the peace of creation.  It's really easy to find this silence on the mountains because the snow collects and blocks any type of sound that may reach me.  That car peeling out 5 miles away.  That helicopter at the hospital taking off.  All of the little things can completely ruin this experience.  I hope to share this with somebody someday.  I want to lie next to somebody and just listen to nothing for a few minutes.  God speaks into my heart through this.  All I want is for somebody else to realize how great it is.  At the same time, I do like having this uniqueness in my relationship with Christ.  I can not wait for snowboarding season because of this.


All in all, God is unfathomable.  He blows my mind every single day! Here at APU, His presence is so powerful!  People's lives are being completely revolutionized.  I am in community with the most beautiful people in the world.  I don't ever want to leave this place.  Friends at APU, stay with me forever! I love all of you individually!  Coffee dates sometime, they are my favorite.