6 Seek the Lord while He wills to be found.

Note: Since I just established that I believe that both Jew and Christian share the same God, I will now go from saying “Judeo-Christian God” all the time to saying simply “God” mostly.

Realizing that the quest for God was between Him and me alone, I now needed to figure out what I thought it meant to have a personal relationship with God. I mulled that idea over quite a bit. And here is where knowing about God helped me begin to notice God. (You see, God is always there, nearby, calling us, drawing us to Him. We just have to recognize it. Big secret!)

Back to what I was saying.

Remember my wonderful Baptist Grandfather? (My parents were John Knox Presbyterians and I was reared by them in this conservative, correct and positive denominational environment; but Daddy Mac, my grandfather, was my primary mentor.) As one of our many and varied activities together (He was a great gardener and craftsman, too.), he had regularly coached me in memorizing scripture as a young child. In my kindergarten years, he would pick out scripture and I would memorize it, lots of it. I guess I was a pretty good reader even then, because I would read and then I would recite back from memory. (My memory was a potent tool back then.) And one verse that I remembered from his schooling was, to paraphrase slightly since that is the way I remembered it, seek the Lord while He wills to be found. Isaiah 55:6 NKJV

Sitting there at my kitchen table, now focused on my new quest for God, that Bible verse came squarely to mind.

Simultaneously, a notion of urgency overcame me, conveying with it a compelling get started, the clock is ticking sort of vibe.

Startled, I sat upright and considered. I have been so focused on religion. Why not do the opposite—turn all my attention on God, and keep it there? And suddenly I felt like such an airhead for wasting so much time getting to this juncture.

I thought: The difference between knowing about institutions and knowing about people is huge! Just like the difference between knowing about someone and knowing him is huge. I thought about how knowing about a famous person is a far-cry from knowing that person. And how the private person is usually much different from the public one. To know a person privately, intimately involves a whole different perceptual content and approach from the lesser mode of acquiring a mere working notion about someone.

In fact, I could now recognize that when I want to get to know a person, I behave in some very specific ways, as I’m sure you do. For one, my interaction with them expands dramatically. I find ways to spend time with them. I talk and listen to them. I share thoughts, feelings and desires. I confide in them and begin to trust in and rely on them. I put things to them first and give top priority to their take on matters. I allow what they say to mean the most to me. I give them authority status in almost everything. And, as I do, I am making an important place for them in my life, right? Right.

Oh boy! Here we go, I thought. Making an important place for someone in my life involves even more. It means learning, learning more about that person, getting to KNOW him--finding out what makes him tick. Who he is? What he thinks? What he does? What matters to him and why? How he acts? Is he funny? Kind? Thoughtful? Frank? Open? Friendly? Is he easy-going? Honest? Loyal? Gosh, so many things to find out? And, hopefully, enjoy finding out.

Had I ever done any of this with God? I asked myself. And the answer was no, not like this. These things still NEEDED doing—expanding my interaction and learning more. Furthermore, with a special someone you have to be regular. Special someones do not feel special if it’s hit and miss, off and on. With God I had always been off and on. So there it was, my thoughtful reader, my error and therefore my new direction—no more off and on.

Yet, what was truly sobering to me was that I did not know the answers to those aforementioned questions above when it came to God. But, I argued on with myself, those are the kinds of things one knows about a dear friend—not an all-powerful deity, right?

Wrong! Jesus called us (His) friends (Once again, material from the database compiled in me by my Grandfather—“. . . but I have called you friends . . .” John 15:15) He WANTED us to be His friends. Now why had I not grasped that truth before? Pure rhetoric, dear reader. I have no answer to that question.

Refusing to be drawn off upon a tangent of maudlin remorse, I retook my bearings and yielded to my new moment of insight: Since it was undeniable that He wanted us to be friends, so be it, I decided. I would endeavor to do just that. I would think about Him, remember Him in everything, be interested in Him, include Him in my life. I would learn everything about Him that I could. Share all my experiences with Him. Make Him a big part of my life. Aspire to eventually become a lot like Him. And everyone but everyone would know that I was loyal to and had a high opinion of Him. Even from my position of shallow understanding of Jesus, I could conclude that no less effort could be justified.

We would be BEST friends! If I could help it!

After all, I had it from scripture itself that God wills to be found. He wants to be sought out, pursued and found. It is His preapproved plan. He would be there when I came looking. If I would just get going! Journey on!

So journey on it was, gentle reader. And as I describe this spiritual journey, hopefully, with the help of my destined-to-be great friend, God, what I think will become distinctly clear to me and therefore to you.


To be continued . . .

5 The Quest for God

Let’s back up a bit.

The recap I documented on the peculiarities of religions and just recounted to you in Gods from A to Z took place one morning after Kathleen was off to parochial school and Richard to work. I was catching a breather, which turned into taking stock of my progress in my comparative religion endeavor.

Take note here, thoughtful reader, it might not show, but I was thoroughly shaken at this point by my prolonged sojourn in the land of comparative religions, the demands of the selection process itself, and by my brush with despair (in reality, an episode of spiritual warfare—I’ll explain later).

Consequently, I want you to know that I do not recommend an exhaustive study of comparative religions to anyone. Although, as a background for living, my accumulated knowledge does help put into context the plethora of zany ideas that the age of communication has set loose like a rain of meteors in the latter half of the 20th century. Still, I stick to my conviction. In my estimation, only a person without a clue to her name (An airhead debutante, maybe?) would ever make such a mistake as to wade into that much and that kind of material on her own.

It became extremely clear to me during that sojourn that I could have easily become lost in the clever, seductive, and lofty reasoning interwoven in those thousands of pages that I had read in my study. As it was, there came a moment when I had to either rein myself in or be overcome. Thankfully, I pulled back, and did so well-pleased with the crisp derivative list of grounding observations that evolved from my effort and that I shared with you in Chapter 4. The list gave me closure. The list set me free.

When the moment of freedom finally came and I sat there completed list in hand, the idea of a quest for the Christian God suddenly became quite inviting. The thing about a quest is that it is an adventure. I must have some of the famous early American pioneering spirit in me because the idea of new territory to explore and map never has failed to engage me and at this point swept me on.

At first I thought the pursuit would be easy. Well, it's not really.

You see, to pursue the Christian God one must pursue the Judeo-Christian God—remember, the one shared by Jew and Christian, sort of. And the quest for God in this joint territory is complicated. Not that you or I would automatically know that particular fact to be true. We see the Jewish Temple, we see the institutionalized Christian Church, the denominations, and we assume, yes, assume that there is one and only one official way to pursue God for either, give or take a few differences and idiosyncrasies (to put it mildly) in the doctrines of each denomination or group. And certainly any one group or denomination is going to insist that the way is their way, so there you are, my friends, stuck with this one-take-on-faith idea that’s like a rubber band too small for its task. In fact, Jews and Christians both find it a real strain to discuss their jointly-held God.

Yet the Jewish Temple and the institutionalized Christian Church both were born out of the practice of believers assembling for corporal worship, Jews in tents and Christians gathering in homes. And it is only with the passage of time that the sense and practice of an external (to one’s heart, that is) route (that being the temple or the church proper) has become the only legitimate portal to God and, intentionally or not, suppressed all other thinking. Now, the temple or denominational church can be a real source and refuge for believers, and the primary hub of God-ordained fellowship, but it is not the source of our relationship with God.

God is the source of our relationship with Him.

My young Christian-born self of twenty-five years ago had already found this truth to be so. I had been from one mainstream Christian denomination to another and another and none could make that personal relationship with God happen for me. If it were going to happen at all, I divined it would be something that God made happen . . . between the two of us.

Only then could I aspire to truly fellowship with other believers and until then the quest for God was up to Him and me.

To be continued . . .

4 Gods -- From A to Z!

Nevertheless, ignorant of all these gems of advice about training up in the Word which we explored last blog, (I had no such similar training unfold in my childhood.), here I was in my late thirties still mucking about with faith formation. Some generous souls would say, “Oh, you are too hard on yourself, Karen. Remember your own lesson from the blog. It is the nature of our being to have a protracted learning experience in everything, but everything! This fact certainty grants that failure is integral to the process. It’s nothing personal.” Dear, generous souls, how I do appreciate your kindness! And you are right.

But back to my narrative and the A to Z’s of gods.

This hitting the books udertaking now unceremoniously launched me upon a real spiritual odyssey.

For one, closer inspection made it quite obvious that the world proposed many different faces for God, lining up quite an assortment. (William Campbell, Masks of God) Somewhat daunted but taking on the persona of the mature adult and hip, of course, I proceeded to ponder critically which one to choose and why? As I examined them I was struck by various peculiarities.

God #1: You are your own god. My flesh voted for that! But experience promptly overruled it. I would be a pathetic god as any cursory examination of my past would prove. I could be a pretty good team player, but a terrible god. Not up to the requirements.

Moving on.

God #2: There was the proposition that Satanism and the occult is a legitimate choice in this day and age. The idea of evil vs. good is an outdated notion so the story goes. Everyone just “does his own thing.” Tolerance: that is what is called for and should prevail instead. Evildoers (Oops!), excuse me, otherdoers to coin a term (according to this belief) have their reasons and we are not to judge or condemn them. So Satan is god there.

The story goes on. Basically, many subscribe to the idea that God is dead anyway! Hmm! This is existentialism justifying atheism—gods #3 and #4, or more accurately a dead god or no god at all. Please! My experience balked once again: Life is too fine an idea to say yes to either of those notions. Sorry, I’m not dumb (all the time).

There was no missing these messages from my environment, it’s true, but I was not buying any of them so far. Continuing with the lineup, there was Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, philosophies, or (chipping in), I thought I could probably make up a god. But that was as ridiculous as my being my own god. So no, I did not go there (Although, as much as they deny it, the Liberal Humanists have. Ask Anne Coulter, Marietta Daily Journal, June 9, 2006).

Proceeding to sift through the remaining choices for a relevant god, I observed that Hinduism and Buddhism touted a cosmic circle sort of thing, an infinite impersonal power, definitely not a personal god.

Islam? Nowhere near as old, first hand, tried and tested as Christianity.

Philosophies, like New Age (with a cosmic, non-corporeal Christ), were just theories. Once unmasked, they were easy for me to discard.

Oh, and there were false idols aplenty, including but not limited to chance, nature, education, knowledge, money, science, fame, power, racial supremacy, etc.—all piecemeal pretensions to a supreme order or governance, in and of themselves becoming the “god”.

Everything so far was just too superficial—not my favorite word at this point. So, if not the world and its array of gods, the flesh and its will, or my own insufficient or underdeveloped solutions for evil (Self-help, How-to’s), what then? Judaism and Christianity were all that were left.

So what about Judaism, I thought?

Judaism and Christianity shared the same God, pretty much. Jews mostly rejected Jesus though. I could not miss the sharp pang in the center of my chest at that thought. Besides, why go with Judaism when Christianity embraced both God the Father and God the Son (The Word & prophesied Messiah)— and, putting it over the top, the Holy Spirit, too?

I was at the end of my reasoning and suddenly found myself peculiarly disoriented and frightened. I was back to Christianity, my inheritance at birth. But what if Christianity is no answer either, I thought? And I was struck that if the God of Christianity was not the solution, there was no solution at all.

But you have just eliminated anything else, therefore there is nowhere else to go, I cautioned myself.

Yet, to properly evaluate Christianity, or find or reject such a conclusion, it will take study, research, energy thought, time (Years? A lifetime?), struggle to absorb it all I objected to myself in dismay. And then, if it is too fails me . . . I shuddered to think.

A dark door banged open somewhere in my mind and a cold waft of despair buffeted me. Quickly, I gathered my wits and backed away. I would not go there! And, in truth, there was nowhere else to go! So I would step off into the unknown and earnestly seek this Christian God.


To Be Continued . . .

Wait a Minute!

Let me say at this point, before I proceed any further, that currently being where I am in the spiritual journey, significantly and happily well-advanced beyond many if not all of my airhead deb ways, I have realized that spiritual growth is not a straight-line affair, but rather is characterized by lags and spurts, with uneven inclusions and perceptions all along the way. By that I mean that a person may have one area of her person well-developed, knowledge ability for example, but also have a great deficit in her person of training in application of that knowledge. Thus her knowledge is practically useless to her. This is how being a human being is. It’s not just me. We can be up to speed in one area and, simultaneously, rapidly going nowhere in another, even if that area is acutely pertinent.

From the above argument, one can now easily arrive at a clear understanding that without the protective garb of layer-upon-layer of spiritual acumen, any journeying soul is perilously vulnerable to the clever and deceptive influences lurking around every turn in the road ahead. Without spiritual acumen one is, regardless of one’s other and many fine attributes, passing through life unshielded against many of the most dire threats. Therefore, my advice, thoughtful reader--never go out without your faith well-learned, well understood, well practiced—at the ready! And you can never start too young to learn or teach the same, either!

Consider this: As I have remarked, due to my airhead ways, I have missed several important moments in life. One such moment missed was that I failed to arrange infant baptism for Kathleen. Never mind--with a shock, when she was two years old I remembered this oversight and arranged for baptism. Now Catholics reading this are probably horrified by that delay, fearing I could possibly have endangered a child’s very soul. Protestants, on the other hand, are probably upset that I felt she needed infant baptism at all, being that they think baptism is a consensual adult’s opportunity for witness. So I pleased no one, really, except God (He honors all such behaviors, when they honor Him.) and, strangely, that was all that really mattered to me at the time and I thank Him for this rescued moment.

My real point here, though, is that if my relationship with God was shallow, His relationship with me was not. Yet again, He yanked me out of my complacency when Kathleen was 4 years old, strenuously pointing out to me that I was going to miss the moment of training up my child in His person and ways if I did not immediately get started that, in fact, 4 years old was almost too late to begin this saturation process for a child.

How did He do this, you reasonably ask?

It was a delightful summer evening. Richard and I were relaxing in conversation, when this new time-sensitive shockwave hit me. Suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, I knew that I MUST read the Bible to Kathleen. Virtually breathless and in a light sweat, I latched onto my Pearl S. Buck Story Bible (a huge, beautifully written thing.) and dashed upstairs to Kathleen’s room where she contentedly sat playing with her little Hot Wheels cars (A new one of which her father bought for her every time we went to the grocery store—and I do mean EVERY time—and we all 3 always went to the grocery store together.) Reeling from my adrenaline surge, I dropped down beside Kathleen and asked her if I could start reading the Bible to her, explaining that I would like to do that every day if she would like. She readily agreed while continuing playing. I opened the book at the beginning and began Genesis.

A couple of weeks later , in the middle of a particularly complex passage, I stopped and asked her if the Bible stories were too much for her and could she even recall any of these lists of things of which the book could be so full. She tilted her head up from her play and proceeded to effortlessly repeat from memory every one of the seven plagues of Egypt that I had just enumerated to her. She then went back to her play. Stunned, I fumbled to relocate my place on the page and returned to my reading.

You see, God knew that Kathleen was neither too young nor mentally undeveloped for His Word. So He got me on the job, and that job pleasurably lasted for years and years. Ask Kathleen. And I knew even then that had there been more children around, they too, at any age, would have fit into our hour of reading.

So take heart, thoughtful reader. There is this great thing—no matter how many lags and spurts one experiences in one’s spiritual journey, one can still be remembered by God. Bless Him, God often does take the initiative even when you cannot—if He thinks you will notice and respond rightly to His promptings, just as He must have known that, if only in this one particular case, I would respond rightly to His call. What a great thought with which to comfort myself and indirectly you in this soul-journey we share.

God is there.

God is in control.

God is so good!

To Be Continued . . .

3 Wild ride!

So about my coming to a belief in God, to make a long story short, as a human being I, like you, am in the thick of things. By that I mean that I am beset by the party going on when I came into the world and still going on to this day. My job, as I see it, is to process it all and make sense of it or just get on board and go along for the ride--my choice. For lack of a better solution, I have pretty much gotten on board all my life, gone along for the ride, out of instinct to herd up, I guess. Until I knew better first hand why not to get on board or go along, the ride at least seemed to be going somewhere and it was sociable.

It was easy to get on board the world's opinions. They are everywhere--headlines, film, talk shows, in conversation and so on. Fitness, health, finances, relationships, the world had unlimited advice on all these things and more and a frowning insistence upon congruence with its thinking.

Then there was my flesh. My flesh had drives--reflexes, instincts, feelings, sensations, emotions and they all competed for prominence in my person. Frequently I felt at their mercy. My "time" said let it all hang out. Okay. I got on board.

Without, evil influence was all around me, embodied in other people, inherent in situations, circumstances and things. And within lurked insidious thoughts disguised as my own. I handled both as I saw most others of my time handle them--ineptly. What a ride!

And the ride got wild. Over my first thirty years on earth, the world's advice kept changing. My flesh got demanding. And I came up hard on thirty years old with a real need for delivery from evil. I had a desperate need for real solutions to the world's inadequacy, the clamor of the flesh and the presence and influence of evil. And I needed real answers to a torrent of questions.

Such as, life: Got Meaning?

If so, I want . . . need to know!

Is it God? Is He the solution, I asked?

I knew about God. I'd been taught Bible at home, in school, at church. But it's not like anybody ever used the Bible for everyday solutions. At home it was there but not read. (Except by my grandfather. He was the one who taught me. Everybody else was way too busy.) In school (private preparatory school) the Bible was important, but little more than literature--sacred literature, noble literature, but literature. And at church, I don't even remember reading it. Lots of creeds to memorize though.

Back to God: Thus the summer-sort-out after 30 some-odd years of life. My past life came pretty well into order after that, though afterward I coasted uneasily, the deep answers evading me. By the time I was thirty-eight, I could see that I was still in a real eddy of life and going nowhere with no real solution at all to what I now call Significant Truth #1. I had that history with God, oh yes, but no relationship. Actually, no notion of a relationship, either.

By then, though, Kathleen was in parochial school and I was an aide there, part time. And in my spare time I found myself thinking, I know about God, but I do not know God. (This was an ah-ha moment for me!) Then I thought, is there more to a focus on God for a child of the modern day than just knowing about God?

My thoughts began a cascade. Who did I think God was, anyway? Could God be the solution for all my needs? For the first time I seriously began to consider that God could hold all the answers to the human predicament created by the world, the flesh and the devil. The possibility dizzied my senses, propelling me to confront the truth that despite my history, I only knew superficially about God.

The realization launched a real spiritual odyssey.

I decided then and there to search out this "real" God, but first I would review all possible candidates for God before settling on just one to pursue (the God of my upbringing) and excluding all others, if only just to be able to say I had.

I hit the books.


To be continued . . .