connection by matt ponka
God is sometimes imagined too narrowly as a personified image. God can be understood more deeply than that. God can represent the source of reality, the fabric beneath the universe.
Before we can speak about connecting with God, we first have to ask what reality is. Human beings live inside reality every moment, yet we cannot fully explain it. And even if we could explain it, could we prove or fully understand its mechanisms? We experience the world through our senses, but the senses do not give us certainty that anything exists. We are inside the experience of being.
Descartes began with doubt. He questioned everything that could be questioned, including the senses, the body, the world, and even whether life might be an illusion. But he found one thing that could not be doubted. If he was doubting, then he had to exist as the one who doubts.
This brings us to a deeper question beneath all human experience. We do not only live in the world. We live inside a mystery that makes the world possible. Every thought, relationship, and choice we make takes place within a reality we did not create and cannot explain. We can study the parts of existence, but we cannot fully account for existence itself.
This is where God, or what I sometimes call the universe, becomes central. God points to the source of the world and the meaning behind reality. Connecting with God is a way of orienting ourselves toward those deeper truths.
To connect with God, the universe, is to recognize that life is not only a series of tasks, desires, and accidents. It is participation in something greater. Every person contributes to the unfolding of life, and in that shared participation, along with the pursuit of connection with God, we are reminded that all people are equal.
A fulfilling life is one directed toward meaning. We may understand that meaning through the pursuit of truth, the development of technology, the service of others, or the search for the purpose of life itself. Beneath all of these is the same movement, the human desire to reach beyond the stars. That desire may be rooted in the most basic human drive, survival.
God, the universe, gives that movement its foundation. Without God, meaning can become scattered or self centered. With God, meaning becomes rooted in humility and service. We begin to see ourselves not as the source of reality, but as participants within it. The lifelong pursuit of connecting with God allows us to live with hope, responsibility, and purpose. It reminds us that life is not empty.
