Years ago I wrote a critical review of Henry Blackaby’s book, Experiencing God ( http://thefaithfulword.org/blackabyreviews.html ).

Because it is on my bookshelf the title is ever before me, and constantly troubles me. Inexplicably, I seemed to have difficulty with the title itself. Today, I figured out why.

We do not “experience” God. We have a relationship with Him. He is not a thrill ride to be experienced. Similarly, I do not experience my wife. Rather, I have a genuine relationship with her. One can experience a relationship. One can even experience an event, such as an encounter with a person. Certainly relationships can be experienced. But in English, people themselves are not said to be experienced, for they are not things or events.

By using the expression “experiencing God” instead of “the experience of our relationship with God” our Lord is subtly devalued from a being or a person, into an event or a thing. Surely not everyone will see this turn of a phrase in such a way, but I thought is was useful for my own purposes to understand why the title has bothered me for so long.