Experience

Have you heard of Puddles the clown? He caused a sensation on America's Got Talent with his rendition of the song, "Chandelier" made popular by the zany Sia from Australia. If not, clink on the photo below to sample the brilliance of this odd, somewhat scary looking character.

I have fallen in love with his eclectic arrangement of old and new songs and enjoy watching Puddles on YouTube. When getting in the shower today I selected a Puddles play-list for company, however, the listening experience was missing something. It was then I realised that Puddles, whilst having the most amazing voice, was a visual artist. To enjoy his act one had to watch as well as listen! This sparked a lengthy meditation on faith, that faith isn't about what you read in the Bible or what you do at church, it's about experience! What do I mean by experience? Well an old friend of mine Ron Achterkirch, from Minnesota told me once the Christianity was not about religion, but about a relationship, a relationship with Jesus. Whilst church, the bible and acting out our faith in practical ways is important, the foundation of all that is this special relationship with the Son of God. It's not something that you can get out of a book, or from a building, or from associating with other Christians, its something that needs to be experienced. I could read all the books I can find about surfing and become somewhat of an aficionado on the subject, but that doesn't make me a surfer. I can stand in the kitchen of the best restaurant in the world, but that doesn't make me a chef. To truly understand faith, to know what it is to be a Christian, in fact to be a Christian at all one has to experience Christ, and it is through his Spirit that this experience is enacted. Now I am not one of the 'touch me and I fall on the ground' brigade of Christians, I have experienced that and it was amazing (thanks Steve Phillips) but I don't have to go down like I've been shot by a sniper, or like a premier league footballer after someone brushes by him, to prove that I am a Christian. But, I do have to experience Christ as a foundation of my faith. That experience can be as subtle or as dramatic as God chooses; it may be the comforting realisation of His presence, the gentle prompting of His will. Or it may be a vision, a revelation, an explosion of tongues. Whatever the experience is, it is an expression of a relationship with the Son of God, and we should go out of our way to find it. Paul speaks of the importance, or more correctly the value of a relationship with Christ. In Philippians 3:8 he writes, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." You cannot know him through a book or a building, but only by being in a relationship with him. Without that relationship faith is just one-dimensional, its just head knowledge. Like Puddles the Clown, one has to embrace the full experience of faith to be able to fully appreciate and benefit from faith in Christ.

I leave you with my favourite Puddles video, a duet with Hayley Reinhart. Enjoy!
 


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