We struggle to find God because we look for a God who isn’t infinitely rejoicing in us.
God is the fullness of joy. He exists in infinite happiness in the fellowship of the Trinity. As Miester Eckhart said, “In the heart of the Trinity the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son. The Son laughs back at the Father and gives birth to the Spirit. The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.” We know that the Son and the Spirit were never “born” but Eckhart is speaking biblically about God’s laughter. To discover more of the laughter of God in the Scriptures click here.
The reason many people struggle to experience God is because they are looking for a God who is distant, boring, lifeless, aloof, silent, and completely focused on moral failures. The funny thing is, this God does not exist! This is not what the real God is like! So if you’re looking for the God who is keeping track of your sins up in the sky, you’re certainly going to struggle to experience “him.” That’s a non-god.
Now on the other hand, the living God who is really real, has infinite energy. He has more energy than a million kids with ADHD. He is more active than we can comprehend. He is playing and laughing all around us and in us in a million ways. He is literally holding every little single thing together right this moment (Colossians 1:17). And He doesn’t hold everything together begrudgingly, He is rejoicing to sustain all things. (Psalm 104:31 TLB – “Praise God forever! How He must rejoice in all His work!”)
When we begin to look for the God that Jesus reveals, the God with the oil of gladness more than anybody (Hebrews 1:9), the God who rejoices with His friends when His children return home (Luke 15), the God who prayed for His joy to be made complete in us (John 17:13), we begin to find Him very easily. He’s not far, He’s in us, with us, and in everyone and everything around us. Joy is the frequency of what it’s like to experience God. Too many people look to God so that He will “convict” (really condemn) them in their sins. It’s a shame that God isn’t counting anybody’s sins! (2 Corinthians 5:19 – “For God was in Christ, restoring the world to Himself, no longer counting men’s sins against them.”)
When we very simply look for the God whose very presence is happiness and joy, we begin to find the rhythm. Experiencing God is more like listening to music, or dancing with a partner, than having an intellectual conversation with a philosopher. His presence is easy and light (Matthew 11:29). Experiencing Him is like drinking from a river (Psalm 36:8), drinking wine (Proverbs 9:2-5), or feeling the wind (John 3:8). We tend to rely on our own minds, and we look for an experience where our thoughts in our head line up in some perfectly logical way, but God’s peace and happy presence are experienced beyond our understanding (Philippians 4:7 TLB – “You will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.”)