Where to Find God

It’s not that hard, really

There is a common pattern in the conversations that unfold whenever I bump into an old friend from my former life as an evangelical Christian. There is the obligatory exchange of pleasantries and small talk about what we are up to these days.

The conversation meanders for a few minutes, but before long, my well-meaning friend inevitably whips out THE question.

“What is THE question?” I hear you ask.

Invariably I am asked, “So, where are you going to church these days?” They ask it casually as if it were a foregone conclusion that I must be going to church somewhere.

When I tell them I don’t go to church anymore, the reaction varies little from person to person. First, they seem surprised; There is a raising of the eyebrows and an awkward grasping for words.

“Oh…” They stammer, “Oh… really?”

This is merely a buying of time while they formulate a plan in their mind. They don’t want to sound judgemental, but they also want to show me the error of my ways in an effort to win me back to the Lord. They don’t realize that I never left the Lord… as if that were even possible.

A second question materializes: “Well… how do you connect with God and other Christians if you’re not going to church?”

Excellent question.

The tables have turned, and now it is my opportunity to get a little bit evangelistic about the benefits of living in constant communion with God, free from the burden and expectation of the performance-based religion that most churches are peddling.

“Well…” I say, “It’s not that to find God outside the church, really. In fact, it’s downright easy.”

Let me explain.

Where to find God

I discovered something wonderful when I left the church behind. God can be found almost everywhere. Now that I have de-cluttered my spiritual life, this has become my daily reality.

The Bible itself says that there is “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:5–7). It says that God is “Before all things, and in him, all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17). And it says that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17)

This is not some big secret.

God is in all things.

Please don’t get confused about what I am saying. I am not saying that God IS all things. I am saying that he is IN all things. He is “presence” itself.

God is in laughter and dancing. God is in the sunrise or sunset that takes your breath away. God is also in the storms: The literal storms and the metaphorical ones. God is in the first mouthful of a delicious meal… and the last. God is in the whiskey that I am sipping on right now, and he is in the crooning saxophone in the jazz number I am listening to as I write this blog post. God is in the cool of the evening, the promise of the morning, and the snow as it crunches under my feet. God is in the saliva of my dog as it licks my face when I get home from work. God is in the welcome mat at my front door. God is in the connection between two human beings. And, most of all, God is in the mirror looking at you.

No, that doesn’t mean that you are God. You would make a lousy God, anyway. But it does mean that he is in all and through all, as the Scriptures rightly say.

Therefore, God is also in the midst of human suffering. God is in tears. God is in the dust and ashes. God is in the raindrops as they run down the window pane. God is in the puddles beneath your feet and waves as they pound the shoreline of your soul. God is in the desert and the wilderness. God is in the dark night, the silence, and the chirping of crickets. God is in the dank, foul-smelling stable surrounded by horse shit. God is in our final breath. God is in our funeral clothes.

You might say, “What kind of God would be present in the midst of suffering and do nothing about it?” and it would be a fair question. But being present in the midst of suffering is not the same thing as doing nothing. God’s response to suffering is not to try to explain it or justify it but to participate in it with us. That is why Christians believe that Jesus is the very incarnation of God: God comes to us in human form. For that is precisely what God needed to do. As Richard Wurmbrand once said:

“God needed the incarnation as much as we needed it, though for an altogether different reason. God had only ever known mankind as he looks at them from the perspective of God, but this does not give you the whole truth. God judged men and women without having lived and suffered and been tempted. So, God needed the experience of personhood!”

The coming of Christ is the completion of God’s “in-ness.” God is in humans because he became human and experienced humanity in both its beauty and its pain.

Oh, you might sit back and think me a simpleton for believing that the divine is so easily accessible. After a lifetime of religious conditioning, it took an incredible amount of unlearning to truly believe that my access to God is not dependent on my ability to be good, keep rules or perform. As Mary Oliver says in her beautiful poem, Wild Geese,

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves… Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

There is something so freeing in these beautiful words. There is an effortlessness in true communion with God. No young lover had to strive to love his sweetheart. It just was. Wild and free.

So, back to the original question that this blog post posed: Where do you find God? The answer is wherever you are, he is. The only thing we need to do to find God is to practice the discipline of noticing. It is not the presence of God that is missing as much as it is simply our awareness of his presence.

The external stimuli that vie for our attention are constant and relentless. Our entire lives, we are kept busy and entertained until we are exhausted and thrilled to death. We are even kept busy and entertained in the church.

But noticing — becoming aware of the presence of God with you — requires you to stop. Switch off. Be still. Sometimes it helps to take a deep breath. Then, just ‘be’ in the present. Become aware of what is all around you right now. The presence is always in the present. And, if God is truly in all and through all, as the Scriptures assert, then he is undoubtedly in whatever is in front of you right now.

In fact, He is the Great Eternal Now.

Every time I intentionally stop and notice, I feel the presence of God. Every. Single. Time. And it’s good. The hard part is not finding where God is. He is everywhere. The hard part is taking the time to intentionally notice his presence, like the fragrance of pollen on the wind in Spring time.

Unless you stop and breathe it in, you’ll probably miss it.

Staring blankly…

Finally, as I finish my explanation, I return my attention to my former evangelical friend, who just looks at me piteously as if I am crazy and lost.

“Well, it’s nice to see you,” They say, and add, “I’ll pray for you,” which is code for, “I think you’re going to Hell.” We bid each other farewell. And as we walk away, I am reminded of another poem by Mary Oliver — Mysteries — and I say it as a prayer,

Lord,

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

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