People seem to either love or hate Brussels sprouts. People who hate them made that determination because they have tried them at least once in their lives. Then you have those people who have spurned God because they tried that once, too, and they didn’t like it or it didn’t work for them. But I wonder what it was they tried.<\/p>\n
When people reject God, often they are rejecting their perception of God. That perception is based on upbringing, religious teaching, church\/temple experience, and encounters with religious people. How many people have actually encountered God directly? Many of those who fall in that category would say the experience was positive.<\/p>\n
In writing Four in the Garden<\/em>, I tried to present a relationship with God in the purest form possible, stripping away religious and man-made obstacles. The ideal I aimed for was to give people a direct experience with God.<\/p>\n One person reading the book explained his surprise at being presented with a relationship with God that he found workable, one that he had never considered before. He is struggling to know what to do with that information. I suppose that if a person is being shown an open door, then he must make a decision whether to walk through it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People seem to either love or hate Brussels sprouts. People who hate them made that determination because they have tried them at least once in their lives. Then you have those people who have spurned God because they tried that once, too, and they didn’t like it or it didn’t work for them. But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[10],"tags":[7,8],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Hhvw-B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":305,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/when-effort-is-not-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":37,"position":0},"title":"When Effort is Not Enough","date":"September 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When you pursue an important goal, you want God\u2019s help to accomplish it, whether looking for a job, trying to lose weight, or seeking wisdom for a friend in trouble. But what is the balance between exerting effort and trusting in God? What is your part and what is God\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/removing-the-trappings-that-trip-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":37,"position":1},"title":"Removing the Trappings that Trip Us","date":"September 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Four in the Garden takes place in a primordial world, before rules and before religion. There is no church, no organized system of worship, no predefined code of conduct. Just God. I found this the ideal\u00a0setting to depict God because I could describe a relationship with God without all the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirituality"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":383,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/religion-versus-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":37,"position":2},"title":"Religion Versus Relationship","date":"June 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Religion cannot nurture a dynamic relationship with God because such a relationship has to transcend the rigid structure inherent to religion. By its very nature, a dynamic relationship with God is fluid and growing and ever-fresh, whereas religion is a fixed blueprint for belief and behavior that confines us within\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Relationship with God"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":311,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/a-deeper-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":37,"position":3},"title":"A Deeper Relationship","date":"November 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A \"relationship with God\" sounds like a lovely thought. But what does it look like? Has anyone defined it for you? How does one have a relationship with a being whom we can\u2019t see or touch? Seems ridiculous, doesn\u2019t it? A healthy relationship is interactive. Giving and receiving must be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Making God Real"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":345,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/where-god-dwells\/","url_meta":{"origin":37,"position":4},"title":"Where God Dwells","date":"November 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Where does God dwell? The scriptures teach us that God dwells in heaven, his holy habitation (Deuteronomy 26:15), but aren\u2019t we also taught that God is everywhere? Being in a place isn\u2019t the same as abiding there. God may be everywhere, but he doesn\u2019t abide everywhere. Abide means to remain,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christ"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/creating-space-for-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":37,"position":5},"title":"Creating Space for God","date":"September 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"What does it mean to have a relationship with God? How do we relate to someone who we can't see, hear, or touch? How can God be more real to us? An Inward Experience Sometimes, we experience God in a dramatic, physical way, but God is most often experienced inwardly.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Making God Real"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickhocker.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}