Finding God in All Things and Spiritualism

Last night, I was listening to the radio. There was a girl telling a story about her and her boyfriend that they are in conflict. However, this girl said that God must have arranged all for her and her boyfriend. So, she would just let it go and happen as God’s will. It seems good to think of God in that kind of situation. But, is it really good to always identify everything with the will of God? Can God really be found in everything?

Finding God in all things is a good thing to do. There is, however, a danger to fall into spiritualism. So, what is the difference? When you try to identify everything you experienced with God or spiritual things, you fall into spiritualism. The Pharisees in Jesus era was one example of those who fall into it. They almost always criticized whatever Jesus and his disciples did and connected it with the Ten Commandments or The Torah. In this country, the Philippines, the chance for someone to fall into spiritualism much bigger because every day and every time, people here are nourished with spiritual things. They are so spiritual that almost all things are associated with the plan of God. The danger of it is that we may forget that we are given freedom to choose. God’s will is not always absolute. If we are so absorbed to the spiritualism, we will always think that everything is planned well by God and there is nothing to do with our will. In fact, God’s will and our freedom have 100% in the accomplishment of whatever we do and in whatever happens to us.

Now, what does it mean to find God in all things? It means to separate and distinguish human experiences with the divine one. In the divine experiences or experience of God, we will find God. That is Finding God in all things. We can’t say that all experiences we have are divine experiences. Therefore, to avoid falling into spiritualism, we should be able to distinguish human experiences and divine one.