Find Me God

 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.” Ecclésiastes 12:1

Have you ever wondered why Solomon told people to remember God when they’re young?  I always thought that as you got older, one should remember God more often because you’re getting closer to death.  However, Solomon says to do it while you’re young, but why?  I think one reason is that when you’re young, you’re pure in heart.  Your mind has not been filled with crazy ideologies and belief systems which make it hard find and know God.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

One of the greatest insights I’ve read on finding God was written by C.S. Lewis; it’s about God finding us, or us finding God.  The quote is quite lengthy, however, it is rewarding.  “When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side.  If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him.  And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others—not because He has favorites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition.  Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.  You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred-like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope.  That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.  God can show Himself as He really is, only to real men.  And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another.  For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.  Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together.  Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science-the laboratory outfit.”[1]

Jesus gives further insight when he says to his disciples, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.  Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.  He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him” (John 14:15-24).

In the context the commandment that Jesus is referring to is the commandment to love one another as he has loved them.  From this, we can gather that it is not the intellectual or the person who knows the most about the bible that Jesus will reveal himself to, but rather to the man who loves his brothers.  We can also gather that there is a knowledge of God in Jesus that is beyond knowing the Bible.  It is the knowledge that comes from having a deep relationship with someone; we could liken that to a man knowing his wife in an intimate fashion.  After being married for 50 years I can say that I know my wife.  I know what she likes and I know her desires even without her telling me.  You could say I know her will; and I know it apart from her writing me a letter every day about her wants and desires.  Knowing God in Christ on this level is getting close to the meaning of what Paul says when he tells Christians to “live by the Spirit and not the flesh”.

Let me conclude by saying if you want to be found by God, or find God, you can begin by loving his image and likeness in other Christians and your fellow man in and through the body of Christ which is his church.  Love is the way to God.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) pages164-165