“I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.” —Helen Keller.
Most of us think of God as being outside, up there, or elsewhere. “He is high and lifted up,” said the prophet Isaiah. And shouldn’t He be since He is so holy? What’s remarkable is that the God who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16) can also dwell in us feeble and broken humans and is willing to do so. “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).
One of my most life-changing insights was when God showed me what resided at my spiritual center. I had expected something dark or sinister, but what I beheld at my deepest core blew me away. It was God Himself. I already believed that God’s Spirit dwelt inside me, but I’d been taught that the Spirit ebbed and I needed to ask to be refilled every day as if my spiritual tank would run dry if I didn’t. It had never occurred to me that God was an enduring and integral part of my spiritual makeup. God is the foundation onto which my soul is built.
God Within Us
Water drops in the atmosphere, such as those in clouds, are created when water vapor condenses on tiny particles of dust. At the center of every water drop is a tiny particle. I now see my soul in the same way. My soul is wrapped around a tiny particle of God, but this particle is infinite, boundless. If I were to plunge into my innermost center, I would find God in His fullness. The deeper I descend into the ever-tighter center-point, the more spacious the view.
When shopping yesterday, I became awestruck on realizing that everyone around me was also a God particle wrapped in a soul. People have inestimable value because they carry God within them. Each of us contains a “drop of glory.”1
St. Teresa of Avila was a sixteenth-century nun and mystic who wrote Interior Castle. In her book, she described the soul as a castle with a series of mansions though which one journeys toward the central mansion. She wrote that God’s mansion “is the centre of the soul itself.”2 I interpret her statement to mean that God Himself dwells at our innermost center.
Flow From Within
In my book, Four in the Garden, Cherished learned that he could connect to Creator via a special connection found at his innermost center. This divine connection was called an umbilicore. It functioned as a spiritual umbilical cord from which he received nourishment from Creator. As in the story, God dwells inside us at our center, and His Life flows outward to nourish our souls.
God’s Spirit or God’s Life is often described as a spring of water that wells up inside us. In John 7:37, Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” The flow of living water comes from our innermost center because that’s where God dwells.
God’s Accessibility
Having God at my center implies that God is always accessible to me. I used to view God like a switch that would get turned off if I felt unworthy or guilty. I pictured Him as moving further away depending on my behavior. Then I would have to work to close the gap between us. But, now, I only need to find God at my center, and my experience of God is almost immediate. It sounds too easy.
Believing that I’m connected to God enables my connection. Feelings of doubt will shut it down. If I don’t believe that I can connect to God, then I don’t. Unworthiness or guilt still interfere, but the best cure for those things is connecting to God. So I push past those feelings, find God, and connect to Him, then those feelings fade away.
I realize that what I’m describing is not most people’s experience of God. God is elusive or distant for most. My intent in writing this is to declare that God is not far away from you. He is closer than you think, closer than your own breath. He is at your innermost center and available to you. We haven’t been taught how to look for God. We don’t know how to look inward, but that’s where God is found. It’s also where your soul is found. Navigating the soul’s treacherous terrain requires courage. To find God, we much deal with the stuff in our souls because that stuff gets in the way.
Press in. Dig deep. Gaze into your soul. Deal with your stuff. If you persevere, you will encounter God. The goal isn’t to encounter God or to connect to God although those experiences can be fulfilling. The true goal is to fall in love with God and to nurture a relationship with Him. In the context of relationship we come to know God in a way that transcends what we read in a book. God becomes real to us, and we become a conduit as He flows out from our innermost being into the lives of others.
1 Rick Hocker, Four in the Garden, page 185
2 St. Theresa of Avila, Interior Castle, page 154
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Rick Hocker is a game programmer, artist, and author. In 2004, he sustained a back injury that left him bed-ridden in excruciating pain for six months, followed by a long recovery. He faced the challenges of disability, loss of income, and mounting debt. After emerging from this dark time, he discovered that profound growth had occurred. Three years later, he had a dream that inspired him to write his award-winning book, Four in the Garden. His goal was to help people have a close relationship with God and to share the insights he gained from the personal transformation that resulted from his back injury. He lives in Martinez, California.
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