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By Steve L. Porter, Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture

Even though it happened more than 15 years ago, I remember the moment clearly. Sitting over a cup of clam chowder at the local Souplantation, I waited for the perfect moment to

lob a zinger of a joke into a lunch conversation with my wife and our longtime friend. I don’t remember what our friend was saying, but I recall I had a quick-witted, humorous retort that mildly shamed him — just a touch over the top. The sharp edges of my comment made it funny. Since we were close friends, I knew he would understand my acerbic jab as good fun.

With the joke lobbed and the jab landed, far less laughter arose than I anticipated. I tried to fill the silence with my chuckles. My friend paused and said, “You tell a lot of jokes at my expense.” I protested: “Oh, c’mon. You know it’s all in fun. I only say those things because you know I love you, and I’m just kidding.” My friend insisted, “No, really, Steve. A lot of your jokes shame those closest to you.”

Feeling the pressure, I glanced over at my wife with a “Honey, you’ve got my back, right?” look. But she gently said, “He’s right. You do that.” Realizing that I would live to joke another day, I smiled out a half-hearted apology, and we moved on in the conversation.

Internally, I brushed off their rebuke. Although I had a mild sense that they might be right, I overrode it by concluding they were overly sensitive. I assured myself that the joke was quite funny — a perfect instance of my longstanding and much-appreciated sense of humor that remained intact no matter what they said.

A few weeks later, I responded to a group email at work, one of those reply-all emails that began with a serious item of office news before featuring some light-hearted back-and-forth among colleagues. I thought of a reply I was certain would bring the house down. I would have to single out several people on the thread to get the humorous effect. With the precision of Jimmy Fallon, I chose two colleagues I thought would garner the least amount of sympathy and began fashioning my guaranteed “LOL” reply. Ready to hit send, I hesitated. Something seemed wrong. Was there a typo? Did I need to rewrite the punchline? I reread the email, laughing out loud at my humor. All was good. But as I went to hit send, I hesitated once again. Then the thought emerged, “It’s not funny.” But how could that be? I thought it was funny. Where did this dissenting opinion come from? I never had cold feet before on these joke emails, and timing was everything! It was now or never. Once more, I went to hit send. The thought emerged clearer this time, “Don’t send it. It’s not funny.”

The Experience of God as Personal

In 1933, the British theologian H. H. Farmer wrote in an essay, “The Experience of God as Personal,” that belief in God “must be more than a mere statement assented to by the mind; it must be realized with a vividness not incomparable to that with which we are aware of personality in another.”1 When we’re aware of personality in another, we know how it feels to be in that person’s presence. It’s more than a mere recognition of facts about them. It’s the difference between a child’s belief that her father loves her and her actual experience of her father lovingly holding and caring for her. According to Farmer, just as a child starves in a relationship with only beliefs and no experience of parental love, a child of God starves spiritually with only beliefs and no personal, experiential awareness of God.2

It’s the difference between a child’s belief that her father loves her and her actual experience of her father lovingly holding and caring for her.

“If all this be true,” Farmer writes, “then it is clear that no more important question can be asked…than how we may become livingly aware of God as personal.” This question becomes all the more pressing because, Farmer claims, “modern” persons find “it extremely difficult to think of God as personal at all; and a great many Christians, soaked in the atmosphere of the age, share the disability, with the result that their Christian experience … remains a weak and ineffective thing.”3

In a time when knowledge of Scripture and theology seem to be waning, do Christians still struggle to know God in a personal, experiential manner? In a certain sense, this may be a perennial problem. I think of Peter’s response to Jesus’s question “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). “You are the Christ, the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Yet Peter follows this A+ answer on the theology exam with his F- rebuke of Jesus after Jesus predicted that he would suffer, die and rise again (Matthew 16:21-23). Peter rightly believed that Jesus was Lord, but his ability to experientially trust in Jesus’s Lordship remained a work in progress. Like the man who came to Jesus and said, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24), how do we allow our right beliefs about God to sink into our bones?

Clashing Values

Farmer gives an unusual answer to this particular question. He discusses what it’s like to relate with humans, noting that a fundamental characteristic of interpersonal relationships involves experiencing others as people with �Ļ�ӰԺ and purposes different from our own that we can’t control. For instance, parents become strikingly aware at various stages of development that their sweet little babies possess their own desires, wants and purposes that may be better or worse than what the parents desire, want and intend for them. Farmer refers to this tension between our own will and that of another as “value-resistance”:

“In all departments of life we become most vividly aware of a reality other than ourselves at the point where it offers tension or resistance. … A person becomes an entity to us by having a purpose which meets ours and is beyond our control. … the value resistance of persons we can only overcome by something we call agreement, reconciliation.”4

Farmer then discusses how this value-resistance is present in our relationship with God. God’s perfectly good and loving �Ļ�ӰԺ will almost always exist in tension with ours. For example, we might be agitated and upset about something that God considers less serious and not worth worrying about. Alternatively, God may want us to pay more attention to what we’re devaluing and ignoring. Discerning between choices that are good, better and best may lead to a clash of �Ļ�ӰԺ between us and God. We might devise a good way forward but feel a nagging sense that God has something better in mind. In Acts 16, Paul, Silas and Timothy “attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” (verse 7). The Spirit had something better even though there was nothing morally wrong or sinful about going to Bithynia. On an earlier occasion, the Jerusalem Council seemed to agree with God’s �Ļ�ӰԺ, “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” (Acts 15:28; compare Romans 9:1).

While God impresses his �Ļ�ӰԺ on us through Scripture, moral reasoning, the influence of others, our conscience, wisdom, etc., Farmer focuses on our conscious, experiential awareness of God’s alternative system of �Ļ�ӰԺ, preferences and purposes. He highlights the tension between our evaluation of a situation and God’s and uses the example of a man named Aggrey who spoke hurtfully to his wife in the presence of her sister:

“That night God met his proud spirit in a tremendous value-resistance. He must apologize and set the matter right. Very well, he would do it very quietly and privately. Then God resisted that. The apology must be in the presence of the sister for she too had been present and was involved…All night God wrestled with Aggrey’s imperious nature, and won. At breakfast the next day Aggrey apologized unconditionally to both women, who, knowing his nature, were almost in tears at such a total and humble giving away of self to them.”5

As we struggle to align our �Ļ�ӰԺ with his, “God actively thrusts himself into the central places of our personality and speaks to us a summoning word.” According to Farmer, the surest sign we’re experiencing God is our sensitivity to a different appraisal of things at work in us. Perhaps we have a nagging sense that we’re in the wrong even when we think our response is justified, or a recurring thought that we need to make a different choice, or, in my case, a repeated check on my desire to make a joke at another’s expense.

Discerning God’s Will and the Conviction of the Holy Spirit

Paying attention to this inner resistance is part of discerning God’s will. In Colossians 1, Paul prays that the Colossian Christians would be “filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9-10). In her forthcoming commentary on Colossians, Holly Beers, a �Ļ�ӰԺ New Testament professor, writes, “God’s will here in verse 9 is able to be known through the Spirit; the Spirit gives the wisdom and understanding that God has and that we humans need.

… Significantly, the purpose of the Spirit’s work is so that their behavior may please the Lord (v. 10) … knowledge that enables wise living and every good work.”6 Professor Beers continues:

“In other words, this is a Spirit-enabled discipleship, and it was as needed for them as it is for us. On our own power we are unable to live as we are created to live; our selfishness keeps getting in the way. However, we can cultivate intentional dependency on the Spirit, and He will prompt and enable us to live in ways that are more aligned with God’s purposes. We can cultivate this by asking the Spirit to help us on a regular basis (on our commutes to work, while we exercise, while we cook), to direct and empower us.”

What Farmer refers to as an awareness of value-resistance in our relationship with God, Professor Beers helpfully identifies as “intentional dependency on the Spirit” who will “prompt and enable us to live in ways that are more aligned with God’s purposes.” Farmer points out that this prompting and directing of the Spirit indicates that we’re in a relationship with God, and yet many of us have trouble cultivating this awareness.

[Jesus] seeks to make [Christians] aware of their resistance so they open the door of some closed-off area of their lives to his nourishing presence.

The conflict between our will, �Ļ�ӰԺ and purposes and God’s will, �Ļ�ӰԺ and purposes has sometimes been called the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. In John’s gospel, Jesus teaches that the Holy Spirit will indwell his followers, convict the world of sin and righteousness, and guide his disciples into all truth (John 14:16; 16:8-15). While the Spirit’s convicting work seems directed toward “the world,” God’s perfectly loving �Ļ�ӰԺ will make their presence known as the indwelling Spirit guides believers into all truth. Galatians 5:17 refers to this clash between our �Ļ�ӰԺ and the Spirit’s when Paul says that the Spirit’s desires oppose sinful desires. It’s a conflict between what the Spirit �Ļ�ӰԺ — life with God — and what our lingering autonomy �Ļ�ӰԺ — life apart from God.7

The word in John 16:8 translated “convict” also appears in Jesus’s words to the Laodicean church in Revelation 3:19-20. Jesus says, “Those whom I love, I convict and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to them and eat with them, and they with me” (Revelation 3:19-20; compare Hebrews 12:5-6). We often think of Jesus standing at the door of unbelievers’ hearts, but in context, Jesus stands at the door of the lukewarm, church-going Laodiceans. His convicting knock lovingly comes to the hearts of Christians distracted and consumed by other things. He seeks to make them aware of their resistance so they open the door of some closed-off area of their lives to his nourishing presence.

Picking up on this idea of Jesus’s convicting “knock” by his Spirit, Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch Reformed theologian, writes:

“Who that is not a stranger to his own heart does not remember how many years it took before he would yield a certain point of resistance; how he always avoided facing it; restlessly opposed it, at last thought to end the matter by arranging for a sort of modus vivendi [a truce] between himself and the Holy Spirit? But the Holy Spirit did not cease, gave him no rest; again and again that familiar knock was heard, the calling in his heart of that familiar voice. And after years of resistance he could not but yield in the end…”8

The Culture War in the Human Heart

This discussion of value-resistance as the convicting work of the Spirit is particularly relevant for us.

First, we need to realize that one way we experience God personally is when the Spirit lovingly confronts our �Ļ�ӰԺ. Any whiff of condemnation indicates that it’s either not the Spirit or we’re mixing in our own or some other judgmental voice. For conviction to get traction in our lives, we must increasingly internalize God’s perfect love for us (John 4:18) and recognize that no condemnation exists for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Coming to grips with God’s gracious forgiveness and acceptance will bring down our defensiveness. As that happens, feeling the pressure of conflicting �Ļ�ӰԺ in your life is like learning your car tire is flat. While it’s hard to hear, you’re grateful to know it.

Second, while we may experience God’s presence in a variety of ways, awareness of conflicting �Ļ�ӰԺ plays a vital role in our ongoing formation in Christ. Sometimes the areas of our life we think we need to change can merely be symptoms of a deeper problem. Sensitivity to value resistance invites us into the root places where the sanctifying Spirit works.

In his book “Hearing God: Developing a Conver- sational Relationship with God,” Dallas Willard discusses four forms of God’s personal presence:

(1) the mere belief that God is present without any experience, (2) experiencing the sense of God’s presence, (3) experiencing God through the effects of his work, and (4) God communicating his thoughts, �Ļ�ӰԺ and purposes to us through Scripture, the created order, other persons, cir- cumstances, visions and dreams, and our own thoughts.9 Our awareness of how our �Ļ�ӰԺ conflict with his represents one way God speaks to us in our thoughts.

Third, the practice of solitude and silence offer important assistance in recognizing how we resist God’s �Ļ�ӰԺ. Henry David Thoreau said, “In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.”10 What would Thoreau say if he knew that the post office now fits in our front pocket and alerts us to “correspondence” dozens of times a day? We need silence and solitude to have space to meaningfully pray “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Our awareness of how our �Ļ�ӰԺ conflict with his represents one way God speaks to us in our thoughts.

Lastly, this culture war in our hearts — between ourselves and God — has priority over the culture war in our country. Being transformed by the renewal of our minds keeps us from conforming to the pattern of this world “that by testing you may discern what is the will of God” (Romans 12:2). Indeed, the failure of Christians to realize the priority of personal transformation fundamentally contributes to our inability to be effective salt and light in our culture today (see Matthew 5:13-16). We need to come to substantial agreement with the Lord’s �Ļ�ӰԺ before we’re in a good position to offer cultural critique. Jesus teaches that we should always remove the log in our eye first before turning to the specks in others’ (Matthew 7:3-5). “Logs first, specks second,” might be a helpful refrain before entering into any contentious conversation.11

I’ll never forget that not-so-funny joke I lobbed over my bowl of clam chowder at Souplantation. It kicked off my growing awareness of the difference between God’s �Ļ�ӰԺ and mine. I’m grateful that my friend and my wife confronted my demeaning sense of humor. I’m also grateful that the Spirit of God continues to show me how his sense of what’s funny contrasts with mine. I fear I still tell jokes at others’ expense, but far more often, I decide not to tell the joke. I hear that familiar, gentle knock. Thanks be to God that he loves us enough to lovingly knock on the many closed doors of our hearts. May we cultivate an intentional dependency on the Spirit and look for him to prompt, guide and enable us to live lives worthy of the Lord.

1 H. H. Farmer, “Experience of God as Personal,” Religion in Life 2 (1933): 237.

2 The Regent College theologian and Puritan scholar, J. I. Packer, famously made this distinction between knowledge about God (propositional knowledge) and knowledge of God (experiential knowledge) in his book Knowing God (IVP, 1993).

3 Farmer, 240.

4 Farmer, 242–243.

5 Farmer, 245.

6 Dr. Beers’ commentary on Colossians and Philemon is forthcoming in the new Word and Spirit commentary series that she is co-editing for Baker Academic. Used with permission.

7 For more on this struggle between the “flesh” and the “Spirit,” see my “The Gradual Nature of Sanctification,” Themelios 39.3 (2014): 470–483.

8 Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit (Eerdmans, 1900), 530.