my personal story of finding God

When I was in high school I felt far from God.  I had chosen to follow him when I was young, but as I walked away from my baptism in a cold Wyoming river at the age of 8, I remember thinking, “This is it?”  I felt deeply disappointed that I didn’t have a profound internal experience. 

Almost a decade later I sat in a high school science class, glazing over at a lecture on cell division.  It was my own soul that was divided, partly committed to following God and partly doubting if he was even real. 

“Lord, if you’re real I want to know it –to really feel it deep inside.”  A desperate prayer that changed everything. 

The following summer I went to church camp and took an afternoon class about how to have a “quiet time”.  As I sat on the grass in a beautiful garden, I learned how to pray and read my Bible and spend time with God. 

When I got home from camp I tried it -spending time with God.  Boring drudgery!  I pushed through my first attempt that seemed to last forever and was shocked to see only a few minutes of time had passed. 

Day after day of drudgery.  Praying to someone who didn’t seem real. 

But something was happening.  Slowly I got to know God.  Sometimes I would read the Bible and it would seem personal –really personal.  Sometimes I would pray about something specific and would get an answer to my prayer.  Amazing.  I began to experience God interacting with my life. 

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  (Jeremiah 29:13) 

I hadn’t realized he had been waiting for me to spend time with him.   

Now every waking moment is a quiet time, and I’ve never been so confident that God is real.

swipe

My husband just got a new toy –a Droid (all the cool kids at work have one.)  He was showing me the swipe feature, which I had never seen before.  SO COOL!  How does the phone know where you are going with your word?  Swiping from letter to letter in one quick, fluid motion without lifting your finger.

And since I’m weird and see a blog post in everything, here’s what it made me think of:

I’ve been a follower of Christ since 1977.  As I have more and more experiences with God in my life, his movement feels like swipe technology.  As he works smoothly in each circumstance, I am beginning to sense where he is going.
 

Which takes me to my all-time-favorite Bible verse.  Jeremiah 9:24.  “Let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me.”  So not to boast (which always means you’re about to boast), but I totally am enjoying seeing where God is going with my life -not all the details right up front, but sensing the direction.   

Can you trace the life experiences you've had to see where God has been at work in a certain direction?

thin places

Yesterday I learned that in Ireland there are historical geographic sites they call thin places.  You can actually take a tour of them -sacred natural landscapes where the distance between this world and heaven are thin.  Where God seems closer. 

Fascinated by the concept but worrying about having gas money to finish this month, let alone money to buy a plane ticket to Ireland, I wondered if there are any thin places a little closer to home.  An actual place where I could make a pilgrimage to seek the presence of God.

Please, please forgive me.  I truly mean no sacrilege or an ounce of disrespect toward the Irish, but the only thin place I can think of in my landscape is the bathroom.

I believe only moms can truly understand what I mean by this.  The bathroom is often the only place to find solitude.

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:  that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”  (Psalm 27:4)  But until then, the thinnest place I’ve found is a little room with a door where the tasks of the day are set aside for a moment.  Where the hot water runs over my face as I pray and where the Sonicare vibrates while I have a little time to think and to talk to God.

I have done a lot of praying while I get ready in the morning.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  It’s where God confirmed in my heart he wanted me to go teach the Bible for a few weeks in Uganda.  A little Crest and some multivitamins is where he convinced me I should give up the curriculum I loved and ask the children’s director about pursuing Awana (which would take us from 30 gradeschoolers at Wednesday church to about 150).  I was towel drying my hair when God pinned me to the wall about forgiving a friend.

I think the mystery isn’t so much in finding a historically sacred location as it is in seeking thin.  Wanting to be so close to God that I reach out for him in the moment. 

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  (Jeremiah 29:13)

Do you have a thin place?