Where Do You Find God?
The writer of Hebrews says “God rewards those who sincerely look for him.”
All human beings have one thing in common.
It’s to connect to their creator.
St. Augustine of Hippo wrote, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
There’s an old song “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places.” I believe our world, even our religious circles, are restless because they are looking for God in all the wrong places.
They are looking for God in a worship experience, a teaching, a book, a walk in nature, a philosophy, a song or a particular church. And while those experiences may teach us about God, or maybe they won’t, Jesus reminds us where we are guaranteed to meet him:
“I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’
Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.”
The words are simple. The instructions uncomplicated.
I was recently in Seattle and saw a bumper sticker which said, “Jesus called, he wants his religion back.”
Embarrassingly and tragically, religion spends billions of dollars every year on buildings, politics, programs, rituals and war, trying to find God when the truth is God is around every corner.
He’s the homeless person needing shelter.
She’s the abused mom looking for safety.
He’s your neighbor wondering what life is all about.
She’s the prostitute begging for intimacy.
It’s your co-worker fighting depression.
It’s your unemployed neighbors, laid off because of the pandemic, wondering if they are going to be able to pay their bills.
It’s the forgotten widow, isolated and lonely, barely getting by on her social security check.
Tradition says when St. Francis of Assisi turned his back on wealth to seek God in simplicity, he stripped naked and walked out of the city. He soon encountered a leper on the side of the road. He passed him and then went back and embraced the diseased man. St. Francis then continued on his journey and after a few steps he turned to look again at the leper but no one was there. For the rest of his life he believed the leper was Jesus.
Now I don’t recommend the stripping naked part, but the scriptures tell us plainly, when we embrace the hungry, the abused, the marginalized, the poor, the judged, we are embracing Jesus. GOD IN ALL HIS DISGUISES.
Author Max Lucado says, “Jesus lives in the forgotten. He has taken up residence in the ignored. He has made a mansion amidst the ill. If we want to see God we must go among the broken and beaten and there we will see them, we will see HIM.”
If that is the case, then it’s easier to find God than we think. And if we find God, then maybe, as in the words of St. Augustine, our world will not be so restless.