I think Karl Rahner got it exactly right when he said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” As we move deeper into a post-Christian world, belief in God--as a cognitive pursuit--will become harder and harder. Which means we need to train our people to see God. Christians in post-Christian contexts need to become mystics. Our encounter with God needs to become more perceptual than intellectual, seeing over believing.
To those who have never encountered God, all this might seem vague and woo-woo. What might all this look and feel like?
To start, it's an experience that comes only in the silence and stilling of your mind. The distorting effects of your ego have to be dealt with, how your perceptions are always being filtered through the scrim of the self which triggers us and creates agitation and desire. Like a dirty lens, the self obscures the view. The self needs to settle down to become transparent, like a window, allowing the light to shine through. And none of this is complicated. It's not rocket science. It's mostly just silence and stillness.
— Richard Beck