I’ve caught myself swept up in something of a person language phenomenon that I believe requires a certain point of explanation. I find myself uttering this phrase with an alarming amount of frequency, “When we truly begin to ‘seek’ God…” Now let’s stop right there for one moment. I say that I am alarmed with the frequency I use this statement because I realize that perhaps the definition of precisely what my words are attempting to communicate might not be immediately clear to someone who does not speak “Christianese”. The fact is that even some Christians might not know exactly what I’m talking about. I know that when I first became a Christian I had no idea what this statement really entailed. For example, a teacher saying to him or her, “Seek the answer and you shall find it” might not aid a math student who is struggling with a math problem. What that student really needs is a practical answer that gives them a fundamental idea of how to dig for that answer. So the teacher might give this much better answer, “Well, let’s refer back to our text. Go back to chapter 6. Remember that it was in this chapter that we talked about the rules involved in factoring. Dig through that chapter and look for some examples that will help illustrate the answer to the question you’re asking. Now that might only lead to a few more questions but it will give you a better idea of how to start.” That answer was very guided. Though it wasn’t terribly specific and it didn’t just come right out with the answer I believe that what the teacher did was to a put a tool in that students hand so that they would have some idea of how to figure out things for themselves rather than just depending on the educational nipple of others all the time. I say that not to be funny or shocking but rather to illustrate that education and growth is not merely about opening up, saying ah, and saying, “Thank you sir may I have another?” The reason I tell you all that is to tell you this: I want to tell you a brief story about the practical elements that were involved in me learning to seek God. I want the statement above about seeking God to be more than some empty motto. I want to offer up to you a simple illustration of how you can make that part of who you are in every aspect of your life.
Seeking God: My First Infant Step
I asked myself this question: What is it that I want to know about God?
Now for each person this question may be answered in any multitude of ways but I think it is one of those fundamentally important questions that we must start with in order to know where our ambition for knowledge truly begins. For me this answer came very simply. I wanted to know about Jesus. I wanted to know what the Bible had to say about Jesus. I had only ever absorbed secondhand knowledge and there came a time in my life when that just became tragic for me to consider. So I sought those authors who knew Jesus personally or walked closely with those who had been a direct disciple of Jesus. In short I began my search in the Bible with the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew. It is important to note here that there is no “correct” place to start. You could very well have started in Genesis or Leviticus or Ruth or Isaiah or Acts or Romans. The starting place is not essential. What I believe is important is that you go to some qualified source to begin your study and the bible certainly meets that pre-requisite.
Yet I also understand that not all people are readers and may also find reading the Bible to be more like tedious homework. So perhaps some people merely need to start with a conversation. Perhaps others will simply need a long sequence of curious questions answered. But I believe at some point it becomes necessary to look at the Bible. I know I danced around it for a very long time because to be perfectly frank I didn’t feel like reading a bunch of “thou shalt not” crap. I put it like that only to show you that false conceptions can get you into trouble. I had an entirely wrong impression of the Bible. You must come at it with a fresh mind. This is easier said than done but achievable nonetheless.
Once you start that study, whether it initially is through scripture or conversation, you’ll find that many questions will be answered but even more will be raised. However, I think that is the true spirit of any great study. The wealth of knowledge that is delivered to us through the medium of scripture is V.A.S.T.!! It is only common sense that when we gain tidbits of knowledge we thirst to know the true breadth of their overall implications. I believe that this is one of the fundamental reasons why we need fellowship with others. On our own we’re not always that great but others help highlight things that we might have never seen on our own. That’s why I feel like it is pivotal for us to hear speakers, read books, study on our own, and join in on studies and other mind enriching activities. This is not to say that I think we should make our lives only about appointments. An appointment or engagement means nothing if you take nothing at all away from it. Whether we grow in mind or stature one thing is certain: The process is slow and not always easy.
Growing Pains: Stage 2 of “The Search”
It’s amazing to me that two years have passed since I began to fellowship with the folks at Oasis Middleport. A lot has happened in that time. Yet I find something personally unsettling when I look back over my life in Christ. I believe that I was 14 when I was baptized and made my confession of faith. On November 17th of this year I celebrated my 27th birthday. That’s an expanse of roughly 13 years. What does it say of me that it’s taken me 13 years to realize my own personal depravity and begin the trek of getting my well-settled butt out of the easy chair? Much can transpire over a 13-year period. Such is the case in my life. I was in church one minute and out the next. I believed in God but defined him with principles that were not godly. I developed personal doctrine that was far from sound. I did everything in the book except look up God in the book that talks all about him. This is not to say that I didn’t ever see the hand of God in the work I was doing or in the people that I associated with. Nor is it to say that God taught me lessons in that time. But it seemed like God was always saying the same thing. For something like a decade I felt like God was always in my brain pounding away this message, “You’re looking in all the wrong places.” Yet I was like many people. I was very stubborn, even as far to set myself on a course of personal destruction. I was absolutely convinced that my own intelligence and wit would supply me with everything I needed to live a “good” life. You would think that I would have got the message after I kept leading myself down one bad pipe after another but apparently my mind isn’t wired together with a strong scent of common sense.
It wasn’t until I engaged in conversation with someone (in this case Chris) that I began to see what I hadn’t been doing since I became a Christian. Again I’ll refer back to some of the things that I stated above. The core elements that were largely missing from life were: Bible study, fellowship, creative expression, worship, prayer, and sensitivity to the Spirit.
Let me knock these out one at a time. I want to show you what the growing process has entailed for me on a personal level.
Bible Study: I’ve pretty much already covered this but let me reiterate that this made all the difference in the world. There are many good translations of the Bible available now. There are many great study Bibles available. There are large and small print editions. There are electronic Bibles. There is software that you can but at Wal-Mart for ten bucks that will help you make good heads and tails of scripture. The bottom line is this: There are a lot of tools out there to help people of all kinds of mental orientations to study scripture. If you find you have trouble reading on your own try to find somebody you know who could help you. They even make the Bible on tape and CD. Explore your options. Go to a bookstore like Waldenbooks in the Parkersburg Mall and you’ll find all kinds of cool Bible study tools. Ask someone if they know where a good Family Bookstore is where their primary business concentration is centered around the Bible. Go on the internet to places like www.amazon.com and look for resources by simply typing “bible” in the search box. Go to a search engine like www.yahoo.com and just type in the words “bible study”. There is no shortage of information to help you. So I beseech you to get involved. Believe me when I say that it is one of the most rewarding things you will ever do in your life as far as study is concerned. Don’t let the conceptions of others dilute your decisions about cracking the spine on a Bible.
Fellowship: Again, this is a topic that I’ve already touched on somewhat. It is important to fellowship with others and by this I DON’T mean that you MUST attend a church service somewhere. Fellowship can happen in several different ways. Chris and I are going to get together today either at his house or a coffee shop or some other place in Athens where the atmosphere is right and the drinks are warm. And guess what…that will be a time of fellowship for the both of us…and we weren’t “in church”. I know some of the things that we will certainly talk about but beyond that it’s hard to say what God might lay on our hearts. But I can guarantee you this much: I will walk away from today somehow strengthened because of the fellowship that I’m going to have not just with Chris, but with my family and loved ones.
Creative Expression: Everybody needs an outlet. For me my outlet is music. Always has been. Always will be. But this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only way to have an outlet. Some people’s creative expression may be through writing, while others may be through art. Yet this category can extend far beyond the arts. Perhaps your outlet, or your gift, is that of socialization. Perhaps you are exceedingly good at breaking the ice with people. Perhaps you have incredible compassion. Perhaps you have a giving spirit. Perhaps you have a great talent for public speaking. Perhaps you have a talent for fixing things. Perhaps you have a talent for building things. Perhaps you are an amazing cook. Maybe you’re a great teacher. Maybe you have a way with kids that nobody else has. Maybe you’re incredibly strong. Maybe you’re great with computers and technology in general. The point I’m getting at here is that everyone has at least one thing that they do well. I promise you whatever your “thing” is then there is a place for it in ministry. You just have to identify what it is and then seek to discover how that can benefit ministry.
Worship: This is a tuffy. What is worship? I could spend a whole separate post talking about just that question. Learning to worship is one of those initial steps that trouble people. Some people’s vision of worship is that of people standing with both hands raised in the air with their eyes closed, or wide open, singing a song at the top of their lungs. This mortifies some because they just don’t identify with that kind of expression. And that’s okay. There is no one correct way to worship. Why is that? Well to put it simply, not everyone is the same. Because of this we again run into an elementary example of common sense. Different personalities will bring different kinds of offerings to God with their hearts. It may look like the person singing with raised hands or it might look like the person kneeling in the back with their hands spread out on the floor in front of them. It might also look like the person standing still doing nothing specific at all but just absorbing. Whatever the case it is essential to find our personal expression of worship. This doesn’t just take place in the church setting. In fact, I would say that if a Sunday gathering is the only place and time that an individual chooses to worship then they are sorely missing some of the best moments that God has to offer. Worship can happen when you wake up in the morning, or while you’re at work, or while you’re driving home in the car, or while you’re having dinner with the family, or catching up on old times with a friend. Worship takes several different faces. Find your face and then wear it with pride.
Prayer: Anyone who says that communication is not essential is crazy. Communication is one of the most fundamental elements of any successful relationship. When you think of the word prayer a picture might jump right into your mind. That picture might look something like this: A whole bunch of people with their heads solemnly bowed and talking in very strange language. You might envision them saying things like “thou” this and “thou” that. You might also conceptualize an individual taking on something that is not even remotely conversational but almost rehearsed and practiced. It should be known that there is no one correct way to pray. If you want a good example of how to pray then stop reading this article right now, find a bible, turn to John 17 and begin reading Jesus’ prayer for his disciples and himself. Jesus simply talks to his father much like we might speak to our own parents. He speaks to God with reverence, respect, humility, and love. When you read it you see this portrait of a good son talking lovingly with his father. Prayer is not about being artificial. Prayer is about being you right there in front of God. Prayer makes you very transparent if you do it honestly. A contrived prayer is the worst kind of thing because you may or may not have any personal attachment to it. When you are learning how to pray it is good to use others as an example. Using the Lord’s Prayer that we find in scripture is a good illustration of this because Jesus hands out this very practical example of how to pray. But then we later see Jesus pray beyond even that. There is a lesson to be learned from both examples. Try this as a start to prayer. Just open up your mouth and start talking. Talk about the things that trouble you. Get them out in the open air. Say whatever comes to mind. At first you might feel a little silly because it may seem as though you’re just talking to space but trust me your words are being listened to very intently by something that you cannot see. God hears us whether we acknowledge it or not. Try just talking first. From there you then need to learn how to listen. Which leads me into my next point.
Sensitivity to the Spirit: This is also somewhat tricky because to many this might seem like such an abstract idea that it borders on the absurd. However, God does respond to us. We might catch it and we might not. The point is to learn how to not miss it. God doesn’t always respond with a big flaming pie coming down from the clouds. It’s often more subtle than that. Sometimes I hear God. When I say hear I mean I literally hear God in my head. If that statement makes you feel weird then don’t bend your brain on it. Not everything you see or hear has to make complete sense to you right away. That’s part of the growing process. Remember knowledge and realization often come on in a tediously gradual way. Sometimes God might respond to you by putting you in a situation where you’re given resolution to a standing issue. For example, my car was on the fritz for about two weeks. It was starting to get rather expensive for people to continuously run me back and forth to work on top of taking themselves to work. Then one night Chris shows up at my house and I tell him what had been going on with my vehicle. There wasn’t really anywhere locally to take it so we had been trying to fix it ourselves but it just so happened that Chris knew of a great place just down the road from his house. It also happened that Oasis has a ministry van for people like me who are in a jam but need transportation. In one night, and completely out of the blue I might add, someone had shown up at my doorstep that solved two major issues that I wasn’t sure how I was going to fix. There were also a small myriad of other convenient occurrences during this experience. Some might look at that situation and say that I was just incredibly lucky but when I look at that situation I see God using others to help out someone else in need. I know it’s a seemingly menial example but I believe that God is involved in our lives in that microscopic of a way. I think about that situation and my mind goes directly to the grace and mercy of God. Instances in our lives that just seem too perfect or just worked out too well are, I think, often times the tell tale fingerprint of God’s hand on a situation. Try to recall the convenient occurrences that have befallen you recently. Perhaps they were no coincidence at all. That might just have been a God response and you didn’t even realize it. There is much to be learned from the age-old art of subtlety. God often illuminates truth in not only unexpected ways but also seemingly odd ways. Yet it’s God all the same.
Where Do We Go From Here: Life in Full Spiritual Maturity
To be quite honest, another individual who is much wiser than I am will better finish these next lines. I’m still growing. All that is above in this article is merely a representation of how the growing process has gone for me. And I’m sure that there are more unexpected bends in the road ahead. I’ll let you know what I find when those corners are met and turned.
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