No one finds God—at least not in the way we find misplaced keys or discover a new restaurant. People find religions, practices, and communities that bring them closer to a belief in God’s existence, but not face-to-face with God Himself.
This isn’t a failure of seeking. It’s the nature of the relationship.
God is like the wind. We feel the effect and watch leaves flutter on branches, but we don’t see the wind itself. Some days, gazing through the window, we might question whether the wind is blowing at all. We know wind exists—but we don’t always believe it’s present or feel its effect in our particular moment.
This isn’t meant to diminish God to a mere natural phenomenon. Rather, it’s recognizing that the most profound realities often reveal themselves indirectly. The most essential elements of existence—love, consciousness, meaning, time—resist direct observation while generating undeniable effects.
Beyond the God of Religions
Perhaps you’ve stepped away from traditional religious conceptions of God. You found the anthropomorphic deity—the old man in the sky, the cosmic judge, the supernatural intervener—impossible to reconcile with your understanding of reality. This rejection can feel like the end of spiritual possibility, but it may actually be the beginning.
Consider that religions, with their doctrines and deities, aren’t God Himself but human attempts to create interfaces for engaging with something fundamentally beyond our conceptual frameworks. Like different sailing traditions developing various techniques for working with the same wind, religions offer different approaches to the same ineffable reality.
What if we step behind these interfaces to consider the underlying experience?
The Felt But Unseen
Wind isn’t an object but a movement—air in motion, invisible except through its effects. We know it by how it touches us, moves through spaces, influences objects, creates sounds, carries scents, changes temperatures. Its existence is undeniable, yet direct observation remains impossible.
This offers a different way to conceive of divine reality—not as a supernatural being separate from the world, but as the very movement within existence itself. Not a creator external to creation, but the creative principle flowing through everything.
This isn’t merely abstract philosophy. It’s reflected in many wisdom traditions:
- The Hebrew ruach and Greek pneuma both mean “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” simultaneously
- The Chinese concept of Tao as the unnameable flow underlying reality
- The Hindu understanding of Brahman as the ultimate reality permeating everything
- Indigenous traditions’ recognition of the animating force moving through all living things
What these diverse understandings share is the recognition of a fundamental reality that cannot be grasped directly but can be known through relationship and effect.
The Variable Perception
“The wind blows wherever it pleases,” says the Gospel of John. “You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”
This unpredictability isn’t a flaw in divine nature but a fundamental characteristic of how we experience ultimate reality. Some days the divine presence feels palpable—a strong current moving through everything. Other days it seems absent, though the stillness itself might be meaningful.
This variability doesn’t indicate inconsistency in the divine but in our perception. The air moves constantly in large atmospheric patterns, but we only notice when it touches us in perceptible ways. Similarly, divine presence might be constant while our awareness of it fluctuates.
Unlike the God of many religions—who can apparently be summoned through correct prayers or rituals—this understanding of divine reality acknowledges that our experience of the sacred follows patterns beyond our control. We can create conditions more conducive to awareness, but we cannot command the experience itself.
This humility is not a weakness but a more honest assessment of our relationship with ultimate reality.
There Are Some Days…
There are some days, if you set your sails just right, if you point your flying apparatus in the right direction, you can “hitch a ride” with the wind and get where you’re heading with less effort than fighting against its existence or going it on your own.
This represents a middle path between two extremes in our approach to life:
On one side lies the illusion of complete self-determination—the belief that through willpower and effort alone, we can shape our destiny. This modern myth of radical independence ignores how thoroughly we depend on forces beyond our control.
On the other side lies passive fatalism—surrendering agency and simply accepting whatever comes. This abdicates the responsibility and creativity that make us human.
The wind metaphor offers a more nuanced position: we have genuine agency in how we position ourselves, but we work within larger currents we didn’t create and cannot control. Our skill lies not in generating power but in aligning with the power that already moves through everything.
This isn’t mere poetic language. It describes a tangible approach to living:
- Noticing which efforts deplete us versus which energize us
- Recognizing when resistance signals misalignment rather than necessary challenge
- Developing sensitivity to subtle movements and openings in our circumstances
- Maintaining direction while remaining flexible about the path and timing
The sailor doesn’t control the wind but develops intimate knowledge of its patterns. The sailor doesn’t create the power but learns to position the vessel to harness it. The sailor doesn’t dictate the journey’s timing but develops patience and adaptability to work with conditions as they arise.
The Invisible Connection
Wind doesn’t just move us individually—it connects us. The same atmospheric movement that rustles leaves in your yard travels across continents, part of global patterns that touch everyone. It carries seeds, pollen, scents, sounds, temperatures—creating relationships between seemingly separate entities.
Similarly, divine reality might be understood not as a separate being but as the connecting principle within existence itself. The space between things. The medium of relationship. The context within which everything else exists.
Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, described God as neither fully objective nor subjective, but present in the “between”—the space of relationship. When we experience profound connection—to another person, to nature, to our authentic selves—we’re experiencing this divine reality.
This understanding transcends the false choice between theism and atheism. The question isn’t whether a supernatural being exists somewhere beyond the universe, but whether we can sense and align with the current that already moves through everything.
The Transformative Force
Wind doesn’t merely exist—it transforms. It shapes landscapes over time. It carries away stagnation. It brings new elements into environments. It powers movement and change.
This transformative quality offers another way to understand divine reality—not as static being but as the principle of becoming. Not the unmoved mover of classical theology but movement itself. Not the unchanging perfect form but the process of ongoing creation.
This aligns with process theology’s understanding that divine reality works not through controlling intervention but through persistent influence—not by suspending natural laws but by operating through them as their deepest pattern.
When we experience transformation—genuine change that feels both deeply personal yet somehow beyond our individual making—we’re experiencing this reality. Not something done to us from outside, nor something we accomplish alone, but a co-creative process of becoming.
Practices of Attunement
If divine reality is like wind, then spiritual practice isn’t about finding God but developing sensitivity to what’s already present. It’s cultivating the ability to sense subtle movements, to distinguish between different currents, to align ourselves skillfully with what flows through everything.
Consider these practices of attunement:
Creating Stillness: Just as the slightest breeze becomes noticeable in absolute stillness, divine presence often becomes perceptible when we quiet the usual noise of thought and activity. Meditation, contemplation, mindful walking, sitting in nature—these create conditions where subtle movements become noticeable.
Weathervane Attention: Notice which way your attention naturally turns when it’s not forced. What thoughts, activities, connections, or creative impulses arise when you’re neither striving nor resisting? These natural movements might indicate alignment with currents larger than your conscious intentions.
Resistance Awareness: Notice where you feel pushed against, where effort feels disproportionate to results, where frustration consistently arises. Rather than automatically pushing harder, consider whether you’re working against a current rather than with it.
Meaningful Coincidence: Pay attention to patterns of synchronicity—those moments when internal and external realities align in ways that feel meaningful yet weren’t consciously arranged. These might indicate participation in patterns beyond individual making.
Follow the Aliveness: Notice which activities, relationships, and directions generate energy rather than depleting it. Not mere pleasure or excitement, but a deeper sense of rightness and vitality that suggests alignment with something beyond yourself.
Setting the Sails
Awareness alone isn’t enough—we must respond to what we sense. The sailor who feels the wind but doesn’t adjust the sails gains no benefit from the awareness.
Consider these practices of response:
Morning Orientation: Before launching into activity, take time to sense the conditions of the day—both external circumstances and internal state. Set your direction intentionally, but remain open to adjusting how you’ll move toward it.
Mid-Course Adjustment: Create periodic pauses throughout the day to notice whether you’re still in alignment or have drifted into pushing against resistance. Small adjustments prevent major corrections later.
Directional Surrender: Hold your intended destination clearly while releasing attachment to the specific path and timing. Maintain the paradox of directed openness—knowing where you’re heading while remaining receptive to unexpected routes.
Creating Receptive Structures: Design your environment, schedule, and commitments to remain responsive to emerging possibilities. Avoid rigidity that prevents adjustment when new currents arise.
Retrospective Discernment: At day’s end, reflect on moments of alignment and resistance. Over time, patterns emerge that help you recognize the particular quality of “wind” moving through your life.
Not Sight But Relationship
This understanding of divine reality shifts the fundamental question. No longer “Does God exist?”—a question that assumes God is an object that either exists or doesn’t—but rather “Can I sense and align with what moves through everything?”
This isn’t reducing God to a natural phenomenon or psychological projection. It’s recognizing that our relationship with ultimate reality isn’t one of observer to observed, but participant to participation. We don’t stand outside, gathering evidence for or against existence. We stand within, experiencing varying degrees of alignment or misalignment with what moves through everything—including ourselves.
The wind metaphor reminds us that the most essential aspects of existence aren’t those we can grasp directly, but those that grasp us—moving, shaping, connecting, and transforming us as we learn to position ourselves within their flow.
Beyond Belief
This approach transcends the tired debates between belief and unbelief. When someone asks, “Do you believe in wind?” the question itself reveals a fundamental misunderstanding. We don’t believe in wind—we experience it, work with it, align with it, or resist it.
Similarly, divine reality isn’t primarily a matter of intellectual assent to propositions but of experiential relationship with presence. The question isn’t whether you affirm certain doctrines about God, but whether you’ve developed sensitivity to the current that moves through everything.
This doesn’t invalidate traditional religious approaches. Many find the interfaces of religion valuable for engaging with this reality. The rituals, communities, texts, and practices of religions can serve as sophisticated “sailing techniques” developed over centuries.
But for those who cannot connect with these traditional interfaces, the direct experience remains available. The wind blows where it will, touching religious and non-religious alike, moving through official channels and unofficial spaces with equal validity.
The Burden and the Blessing
Part of our burden as conscious beings is that we don’t control the fundamental currents of existence. We didn’t create the conditions into which we were born. We don’t generate the atmospheric patterns that move through our lives. We can’t command the wind to blow when and where we prefer.
Yet within this limitation lies a profound blessing: we’re not alone in creating our lives. We participate in something larger that moves through everything, including ourselves. We’re supported by currents we didn’t generate but can learn to work with. We’re connected to patterns that preceded us and will continue beyond us.
The sailor doesn’t resent dependence on wind but develops intimate relationship with it—learning its patterns, respecting its power, aligning with its movement, and finding freedom not despite this dependence but through it.
Perhaps our relationship with divine reality might follow a similar course—not controlling but cooperating, not commanding but aligning, not proving but experiencing, not believing but relating.
There are some days, if you set your sails just right, if you point your flying apparatus in the right direction, you can “hitch a ride” with the wind and get where you’re heading with less effort than fighting against its existence or going it on your own.
Those days reveal something essential about our place in the universe—neither all-powerful nor powerless, but participants in a reality that moves through everything, including us.