Skip to content or main menu

What Are We Really Looking For?

May 14, 2009

Ps. 98:2

The Lord made His salvation known and revealed His righteousness to the nations.

In my short amount of time spent training for and engaging in the work of ministry, I have found myself at times in various conversations surrounding this “revelation” of God to his people. From theological debates of divine revelation to highly experiential explanations of how people saw, felt, or heard from God, to churches where Pastors sit in rooms and try to find the secret mystery of helping people “find” God. The realization that I have come to is that every person, every where is on some form of a quest.

Everyone is looking for something. And sometimes we call that something “God.”

The reason I have concluded that our search is perhaps not for God is because scripture time and time again reveals to us that GOD HAS MADE HIMSELF KNOWN. Through creation, through mountains and streams and rivers and trees and through the person of Jesus Christ, God has revealed Himself to the nations.

So therefore I can only conclude that if we were REALLY looking for God, we would have found Him already. We would see Him in front of us, behind us and all around us.

Again I ask the question…what are we actually looking for?

Why is it that when scripture tells us that the trees, the mountains, the rivers, even the vary nature of created men and women SCREAM the Glory of the Living God, our response is “Nope. Thats not enough for me.”

And then begins our quest for something more.

I think the problem lies in the fact that people try to alter the truth of God to fit the image of the God that they want Him to be. People are in a quest for convenience, and a quest for a God that fits what it is that they desire. Some desire the emotional experience, the “pins and needles” feeling that sometimes comes during worship, and they will spend year after year hoping that maybe…just MAYBE it will be this worship time, this next song…that will provide them with those familiar shivers and assure them that God is real.

Truthfully I could at times have counted myself among them.

I wonder at my own ability to single out the characteristics of God that I want, and try to pretend that the other ones aren’t there. I want the comfort of God, but not the danger. I want the peace of God, but not the wrath. I want the forgiveness of God, but not the consequences. I want the relationship with God, but not the sacrifices….

Isn’t it just true that sometimes we shrink God down to make Him convenient?

So then the process is becomes this: We decide what we want, we make the necessary alterations and adjustments to God to make him what we want, and then we worship those things.

It sounds scarily like a Golden Calf to me.

Today I find myself challenged to take a step back, look at the fullness of God as He is revealed in the world around me, in the people around, and in the scriptures in front of me. When I come across something I don’t like or understand, I will submit myself to trusting that God is composed entirely of love, and for Him to act outside of His love nature is impossible, and therefore I will simply accept that God is everything. I will not reduce Him, I will not try to change Him, I will not do anything except worship Him in the fullness of who He is.

Because God has revealed Himself to the world. He is everywhere. I must therefore conclude that when I can’t find Him….

It is not God that I am looking for.

On my journey,

Brian <><

Add the first comment...