Are you wandering in darkness and can’t seem to find the light? Are you confused and don’t seem to know what to believe? Does it really matter? Can you truly know? Is there really any truth? Is it worth it to even bother with such questions? Isn’t it all just meaningless? Hasn’t science proved there is no God?
God’s word tells us that if we really seek desparately we will find.[1] The Lord says, “Ye shall seek Me and find Me when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.”[2] Jesus said, “Those that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.”[3] In other words, it takes a considerable effort. Any thing worth something cost us something in its conquest. That’s why Jesus said, “Enter ye at the straight (or narrow) gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that go in there at. Because straight is the gait and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it.”[4]
Are we really seeking God, seeking truth, seeking goodness with all our heart and mind and strength? Maybe that’s why His first commandment was to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind.[5] If we are not desparate in our search, we will miss it. The enemy of our soul will deceive us into believing something less than the truth. But it is only the truth, and nothing but the truth, that will set us free in heart and in mind and bring us the peace of heart and mind that we seek.
Saint Teresa of Avila said, “God never withholds Himself from them who pay the price and preserve in seeking Him. He will, little by little, and now and then strengthen and restore that soul, until it is at last victorious.”[6]
Apostle Peter tells us that if we only with a desparate and open heart will read and seek in God Word, as we would seek after a light in a place of complete darkness, that God will come to us and eventually His Spirit will touch us like the light of the morning sunrise. All at once the light will break in and we will understand.[7]
However, the enemy of our soul will try to get us to doubt. Pascal said, “Willing to appear to those who seek with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from Him with all their heart, God so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He has given indications of Himself, which are visable to those who seek Him and not to those who do not seek Him. There is enough light for those to see who only (really) desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition (and prefer not to believe).”[8]
Apostle Paul tells us he counts everything he had in life before he met Jesus, his position in the Sandhedrin, his power, his good education under one of the most learned Rabbis, Paul counted it all rubbish in comparison with the infinite worth of knowing Jesus.[9]
Please don’t let the things of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life keep you from finding God.[10] The Catholic mystic Thomas Merton said, “If you found God with great ease, perhaps it’s not God that you found.” Break out of those false concepts. Break free by calling upon the Lord with all your heart.[11] Break loose by seeking with all your heart for the truth that will make you free in heart and mind and body. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”[12]
[1] Matthew
7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you.”
[2] Jeremiah
29:13
[3] Matthew 5:6
[4] Matthew
7:13-14
[5] Mark
12:30 “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first
commandment.”
[6] Teresa
of Avila, as cited by Andrew Murray in “The School of Obedience,” The Essential
Works of Andrew Murray, Barbour Publishing, 2008, p.720.
[7] 2 Peter
1:19 “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye
take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and
the day star arise in your hearts.”
[8] Blaise
Pascal, Pensées cited by Tim Barnett in “Belief in God, Evidence, and the Human
Heart,” https://www.str.org > articles >
belief-god-evidence-and-the-human-heart#.XeO_qB5Uk0M
[9]
Philippians 3:8 “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excllency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”
[10] 1 John
2:16 “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
[11] Romans
10:13 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus) shall be saved.”
[12] John
8:32
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