Does Really God Meet You Where You Are?

“God meets you where you are at” is an insidious spiritual fallacy of our modern times. it is a platitude amenable to various personal interpretations and has made its way into church lingo including homilies and writings of Catholic authors, including priests. This pseudo-Gospel has inspired people and given direction to various ministries leading them away from the heart of the true Gospel and the purpose of the Church.

What’s Wrong with the Statement?

First, it purports to place God beyond the Incarnation—as if there were a better way in which God could come to us. By being born among us humans, God has already met us where we are! (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church #66) In other words, Christ’s incarnation on earth is about Him becoming available to us in humility, in flesh and blood, so we can welcome and accept Him without fear or hesitation. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) wrote:

“In the Incarnation, human nature truly becomes the throne and seat of God, who is thus forever bound to the earth and accessible to our prayers.”

Second, those who invoke every now and then the stock phrase in question, hardly have the Incarnation in mind. More often than not, they are addressing it to the recipient in a reaffirmation of a lifestyle regardless of how ungodly it is—as if God is meeting them on their terms.

Are you in an addiction? Not to worry. God meets you where you are! Are you in an (immoral) relationship? Well, God is with you right where you are. Unable to go to church or partake of the Sacraments? Don’t beat yourself up. God, Himself comes to meet you. You don’t have to go to Church.

Third, this spuriously comforting statement and its fallacious cousin ‘Come as you are’ do not challenge one to conversion. Rather, it goads one to recreate God to fit a self-centered reality and to self-justification.

Fourth, this fallacy denies the Church as the instrument of salvation chosen by God. By calling for perceiving God as a coming-now-to-a-theater-near-you phenomenon, it takes away the need for the one needing salvation to approach the Cross, the altar of sacrifice.

Fifth, the statement is not necessarily Biblical and is amenable to multiple risky personal interpretations, often appealing to either pity or authority. More importantly, it does not encourage one to go to the Scriptures for answers, let alone the Church.

Sixth, the statement seems to presuppose that one’s life is meant to be static—there is no going beyond it in response to God’s call. There is no transfiguration to be hoped for once this convenient item-God consoles you where you are.

Finally, this troublesome adage may ring true in the most inner workings of a heart seeking union with God. However, that fact alone cannot justify it being employed as an unimpeachable piece of one-size-fits-all theology for souls in crisis.

“But where are you?”

A person who believes ‘God Meets You Where You Are’ must instantly answer the question “Where are you?” (Or “Where am I?”) If we resist making a journey toward God, we can hardly hope to meet Him.

Saint Augustine of Hippo confesses:

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. […] You were with me, but I was not with you. […] You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.

Therefore, one must assess where one stands in relationship to God. Are we yearning or are we just curious? If we are curious, what are we doing about it? What are those undesirable aspects in life that must be weeded out in order to seek God?

Workings of a Conversion

As a lifelong Catholic, and whose parents emphasized catechesis and the practice of the Sacraments, I thought I was all set. I had God. He had been given to me. It was so until I met some people whose silent witness stirred in me a yearning that I had not even recognized was a hunger for God.

One of them was a mother of three who I watched praying long hours in an empty chapel where I too went to pray. There was something about the way she prayed that I knew I did not possess. Two of her children were my friends and exemplary individuals. “What then must she be praying for?”

Another witness was that of a classmate and the godfather of my husband. During adoration, he would remain kneeling on the bare floor for the entire hour or even more. Having had a kneeling problem since childhood, I felt envious that I could never ever kneel more than a few minutes.

My father was so forgiving it seemed he did not have a memory. He would approach people who ridiculed him as if they were his best friends. I could scream at him and immediately afterward tell him about my day at school and he would listen with great interest. How was that possible?

The Catechism notes (Cf. CCC #30):

“[The] search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, “an upright heart”, as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.

I indeed had the witness of many. Yet, there was a more personal way in which I had to encounter God. I began to yearn to hear His voice. If prayer was the way to relate to God, I was not satisfied I was doing it well. As God’s ‘silence’ began to deafen me, I started to write my outpourings (actually “sighs too deep for words”) into a personal blog. This greatly helped but did not fully satisfy. Nothing I did even in service of God or neighbor seemed to bear fruit.

One day, I heard God. He said: “Remain in Me.” Over time, I heard Him say it again and again but I told myself it was my own voice. Finally, He shouted at me in print:

“Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” – John 15:5

Although this verse which I chanced to read before a Sunday Mass got me the answer why I felt fruitless even after much toil, I still wondered how to “remain in Him”.

As I persevered in my journey, God was kind to penetrate my thick skull and hardened heart to let me realize He had already spoken to me through His Word. Reading, hearing and heeding His Word is the way to listen to His voice and remaining in Him.

To borrow Saint Augustine’s words again,

“You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.”

We Encounter God by Responding to His Call

It was as if I had found the key to a long-locked door. In reality, it was God Himself who had handed me the key through the only window open—my hunger to know Him. Once I opened up, I was able to connect with Him as one would with someone across the dinner table.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.” (Revelations 3:20)

The Catechism refers to faith as “man’s response to God” (Cf. CCC#26) This response is not a one-time affair but a relationship of a lifetime that begins the moment one comes into being (Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 19 §.1). We are called to choose God every moment every day. Each time we participate in the Eucharist, it is God communing with us and we in Him. I could not believe I had eaten from His table over years without ever having fully opening myself up to Him.

Biblical Examples of Human Response to God-Encounter

Upon the Incarnation following Angel Gabriel’s message, Mary hastens to visit Elizabeth in the town in the hill country (Luke 1:39). Shepherds made haste (Luke 2:16); the Magi made a journey, humbling themselves and undertaking hardships (Matthew 2:1-12). ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths,’ wails John the Baptist in Isaiah’s words. The man sick for thirty-eight years is commanded to take up his mat and walk and he does (John 5:1-15).

Reminding about God’s relevation of His Word through the Incarnation, Saint John the Evangelist reminds that to those who accept Christ, God gave them power to become His children (John 1:12). In 1 John 2:29 to 3:6, John underscores that those who seek to be God’s children must be begotten in righteousness, and that those who live in this hope strive for holiness in imitation of God.

Therefore seeking God or wanting to have Him meet us where we are calls for purification of the soul of all things unholy. Conscience formation is therefore an important task for the earnest Christian. While it is only by God’s grace that we are redeemed, we are called to take the steps in single-minded pursuit of our goal of redemption.

We love to watch the formation of birds in migration or aircraft in air shows. Their movement towards their destination depends on the formation pattern they undertake. This means that they must individually and collectively undertake that formation to the exclusion of all other methods and routes.

“The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.” (Cf. CCC #1783)

There is no gradually giving up vices and sinful habits we have. One must determine to make a U-turn towards God. Spiritual reading, holy friendships, learning of Christian moral principals and works of charity, all go to form one’s conscience. Prayer must accompany all our pursuits. Where one does not have the wherewithal to approach God our Father, His Spirit takes up for us interceding with “inexpressible groanings” (Cf. Romans 8:26). Saint Francis de Sales encourages us to persist in the spiritual life:

“[It] is our privilege in this war that we are certain to vanquish so long as we are willing to fight.”