Seeking God
When I read the scriptures, I usually find at least one verse that stimulates a series of thoughts which helps me make sense of things I observe in individuals and the world. This week is no exception. Isaiah 65:1 is the verse for this week. It reads, “I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.” This verse precedes several verses which describe the rebellious nature of ancient and modern Israel, a people who refuse to accept the purpose of the law, which is to reveal the true nature of the God they worship.
I will contrast two ways that people find God and come to know him. Both methods can be used to discover what and who God is, and both have the same major stumbling block associated with them.
Let’s start with Israel, which requires us to look at what happened to the so-called fathers. Abraham sought God and found him. His son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob, were also successful in coming to know God. It was not without much effort and trial. The idea that Jacob wrestled with the angel of God showed that the knowledge of God’s true nature is not discovered casually. I do not believe that this wrestling match was a singular event, but Jacob regularly contended to comprehend and follow God over his lifetime.
These struggles are common to all of us who seek God. We want this knowledge to come quickly and on our terms. We want to think that things are settled once we have formulated concepts and ideas about God. Some want God to reveal himself to us in person as he did to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We want to sneak past the angelic sentinels and partake of the Tree of Life. That cannot happen. We are all in different stages of unpreparedness to accept God in his glory, so we must be patient but unrelenting in our quest.
Ancient Israel and religious people everywhere seek for God using different forms of practices, rites, ordinances, ceremonies, and so forth. Most of these practices have similar purposes, but the meanings behind them are sometimes lost in their completion. Baptism can be used as an example. We often hear the phrase, she or he has been baptized, and mistakenly have the mindset that the effect of the action is all that is required to open the gates of heaven. The reality is that the person was immersed in water after a specific set of words were said. The only way the baptism is efficacious is when the candidate is somewhat prepared before being baptized and consistently reflects on and renews the covenant.
Another example from the Christian traditions is that all you have to do to be saved is accept Jesus as your savior. While that is true, your coming forward to the stage and saying the words will not save you. It must be followed up with a lifetime of repentance and daily walking with God because none of us are prepared to accept salvation through Christ. We don’t understand salvation, so how can we possibly accept it?
Both examples, baptism and accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, can have marvelous effects on the individuals who receive them. They can become new creatures in Christ, being transformed at the moment of conversion, but even that is not the culmination of the quest to find God; it is only the opening of the gate to the path that leads to God.
Next, I will describe those who find God while not explicitly seeking him. These are individuals who seek for truth wherever they may find It. This approach seems to be a more difficult endeavor, but maybe not. I contend that anyone who pursues truth will eventually come to God because they are essentially the same thing. This pursuit requires an open and very sharp mind. Logic and reason, curiosity and questioning, observation and incremental conclusions will lead you to believe in God. The reason this may be the more complex path is that you have to consume a massive amount of information and be able to process it using ever-changing frameworks and protocols. It requires a knowledge of human nature and motivation (psychology and philosophy), an understanding of living creatures (biology), our place in the universe (cosmology), and how all of these things interact.
Partial mastery of the disciplines described above takes years of effort but is worth it if you can manage it. There are so many resources available to gather and process information that it may be challenging to know where to start if the academic path is one you want to take advantage of in your effort to find God.
The problem with academics is that many professors think they have found all the answers and are unwilling to accept that they may be wrong. So, you have to take what they say with a proverbial grain of salt while gleaning the bits of truth that they offer. This error is also true of the professors of religion. They think they have all the answers, but they don’t. I say that no one has all the answers because if they did, they would probably rule the world in perfect peace and harmony, and that is not happening. Another reason I don’t think anyone currently on the earth has seen the glory (have a perfect knowledge of God) is that they could not be confined to mortality. But that is a topic for another day.
Both the religious and academic pursuits of truth share the same challenge to finding God. The problem has two heads: pride and vanity. Part of human nature is wanting to rest from the labor associated with progression. Anyone who has done anything challenging places artificial limits on effort and ability. When you think you can’t do more, somehow you find a little more strength and discover additional capacity. Time is probably the only limiting factor to our pursuits because it begins and ends in our current mortal state. So, because of our limited time, we are eager to arrive at conclusions and be right about them. We can’t afford to fall into the trap of being right.
I suppose you could take the easy way out and say there is no God and give a plethora of good reasons to believe it, but that is a lazy way of thinking. There are many benefits of saying there is no God, the chief of which is that nothing you do is wrong, and you don’t have to wonder about things you don’t understand or just make things up as you go along. The obvious problem is that you have no hope of the redemption you are desperate for when you hit rock bottom and you die.
There is a unified point to finding God in the two methods I have discussed today. Truth is constantly made manifest to us through the Holy Ghost. Regardless of how or where we find the truth, it is confirmed to our souls by the power of the Spirit. That is how we come to believe. If you want to know what you believe, look at how you act. If you act as if God exists, you believe in God, even if your concept of him is incomplete, which is the case with all of us.
Seek to find God. Seek to find him everywhere, and you will find him everywhere. Follow Jesus Christ in every way, and you will know the will of God for you. Make promises to God, and he will make promises to you. Keep your promises to God, and he will keep his promises to you. As we share what we learn as we seek for God with others, we give them hope.
In conclusion, I testify that you can find God if you seek him, and he will reveal himself to you in ways that will allow you to overcome the challenges and trials you face. It is done first in faith and then confirmed by the Holy Ghost and becomes a sure knowledge, little by little, as we make ourselves ready to receive it.