When Belief Is No Longer Enough

The Posture of the Seeker

I have tried, as intentionally as I know how, to enter every situation with a particular posture—one I often visualize as an infinity symbol. One side of that symbol represents adding value; the other represents learning. Wherever I go, with whomever I encounter, I ask myself two questions: How can I add value here? and What is here for me to learn? I believe both must be present. To only give without learning breeds arrogance. To only learn without giving becomes self-serving. Growth happens in the flow between the two.

Recently, while receiving feedback on my latest book, I found myself in that familiar posture—confident that I had added value, yet fully open to being taught something new. What came back to me was a question I had never been asked before.

“How long have you been a mystic?”

I smiled. Truthfully, I didn’t know how to answer. I had heard the term many times, but I had never applied it to myself, nor had I taken the time to define it. So I answered honestly: I’m not a mystic. I’m just a thinker.

I have always grown uneasy with labels. I understand their usefulness—language requires them—but I also see their danger. Too often we forget that labels are only pointers, not reality itself. When we mistake the label for the thing, it quietly becomes part of our identity. And when that happens, it can root deeply, and not always in healthy ways.

Still, curiosity won out. As soon as I could, I looked up the definition of a mystic. I read several, but one in particular stopped me:

A mystic is someone who seeks direct, lived experience of God or Ultimate Reality, rather than knowing God only through concepts, beliefs, or external authority. Mysticism is not about escaping religion—it is about entering its deepest dimension.

I had to admit—while I may resist the label, the description resonated deeply.

In that sense, I am very much like Thomas in the Bible. I need to experience truth for myself. I am drawn far more to Ultimate Reality as a lived encounter with God than to inherited concepts, secondhand beliefs, or even what well-meaning leaders and theologians tell me I should believe. That does not mean I reject tradition or authority—it simply means they are not sufficient on their own.

My exposure to mysticism, as a word, came primarily through Eastern philosophy, meditation, and contemplative practices—Hindu mysticism, Eastern spirituality, and eventually Christian mysticism. I encountered it while studying yoga, while reading about meditation on God, the face of God, Christ consciousness, and similar themes. I noticed how often these traditions emphasized experience over explanation.

At the same time, I attend a Baptist church—and I am genuinely content there. This is part of why labels trouble me. Too often, by claiming one label, we unintentionally negate others. Language becomes divisive where it was meant to describe. This is why there is such a thin line between using labels as tools and allowing them to become prisons.

So let me be clear: I am a Christian. I believe deeply in a personal relationship with God. I believe in lived experience. I believe in contemplation and meditation, which for me are inseparable from prayer. I place far more weight on what I have encountered directly than on what I have merely been told to believe.

There is no life without belief. There is no journey without faith. And if I am going to be honest with myself—if I am truly going to be a seeker of the highest Source—then lived, personal knowing of God must carry more weight in my spirituality than abstract doctrine alone. Especially if I am willing to entertain the radical awareness that all there is, ultimately, is God.

Understanding mysticism helped me understand how I read the Bible.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt that I read Scripture differently than most. Growing up in church, the Bible was often presented as a straightforward history book—clear facts, literal meanings, nothing to decipher. Yet Jesus himself says otherwise. In Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8, he openly acknowledges that not everyone will understand his message.

When I read Scripture, I am constantly moving between languages—back to the Hebrew in the Old Testament, forward to the Koine Greek in the New—trying to understand not just what was said, but what was meant. Words matter. Context matters. Consciousness matters.

Take, for example, God’s revelation to Moses: “I AM that I AM.” There is an entire universe contained in that statement. Yet I cannot recall many sermons, Bible studies, or theology classes that gave it the attention it deserves. To me, it is one of the most profound revelations in all of Scripture.

In the same breath, I contemplate Jesus’ words: “I and the Father are one.” “Ask in my name.” “No one comes to the Father except through me.” And immediately after, he tells us that we, too, will do these things—and even greater things.

I believe these statements are not contradictory. I believe they are pointing to the same truth: the power of God within us.

One of the great misunderstandings, perhaps even tragedies, is that many people think “Christ” is Jesus’ last name. We forget that Christ refers to a consciousness—a way of being, a divine awareness that Jesus embodied. I believe others before him and after him have carried that same consciousness. I believe that is the “I AM.” That is how we do these things—and more—by living from that breath of life already within us.

This is where the mystic perspective often differs from the conventional one. The responsibility shifts inward. The power is not outsourced. The key is placed in our hands. The Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus tells us, is within us.

Jesus spoke about the devil more than anyone else—yet from a mystic perspective, I do not believe there exists a negative force equal or even comparable to God. I believe these teachings require discernment. When Jesus speaks of heaven, hell, fire, and darkness, I believe he is describing states of consciousness—ways of being that we choose through free will.

We were made in the image of God. And that image, at its core, is the image of a Creator.

From that perspective, we are constantly creating. We create heaven. We create hell.

For the mystic, personal experience becomes the primary narrative. Whether or not there is a place beyond this life matters less than how we live this one. If Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, I believe he is speaking in the present tense—about a posture, a state of awareness, a way of living now.

I do not dismiss what may come after. I simply refuse to prioritize speculation over responsibility. Everything that leads to whatever is beyond begins with right action here. And that, to me, is where the true work has always been.

The Kingdom is not coming. The Kingdom is not waiting. The Kingdom is within.

And the seeker’s task is not to escape this world—but to awaken within it.