We are born hard wired to search for God, not just me or you or your pastor, everyone you will ever meet is hardwired to seek the truth of God. When we are children we are taught in so many intentional and unintentional ways, how to live, how to love and how to placate our natural programming. When I was eleven years old God revealed Himself to me, from that moment on I knew God was real and that God was attainable, not the lofty untouchable finger waving in condemnation culture had taught me about. The multiple influences around me and the lack of solid guidance left me in a vulnerable place, I had no foundation, no structure and no knowledge beyond what I could feel to be true. I was ripe for the picking, my eyes were opened to the things of the spirit and my heart was longing for more of the truth I had found. Growing up in a “Christian Nation” it should have been a slam dunk and I am fairly certain it would have been had ANY “Christians” had believed me and taken and interest. I spent the next several years defending the Spirit connection I KNEW was true against a faith people were telling me was more true but had no proof to validate, other than a book that I didn’t believe in. I turned to eastern religions, and then inward for answers, I didn’t know what was right but I knew that the “Christians” were wrong because they discounted the ONLY thing I knew to be true.
As believers we have been called out to share the gospel truth with all the nations of the world, including our own, to share the truth: not to judge or condemn, not to belittle or to even to correct, just to give the truth and that is God’s love. In the bible when Paul went to Athens after fleeing Berea he tapped into the fact that they were “very religious” , he saw that they were seeking God and he used that to meet them where they were just as God met us. “For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an alter with this inscription; TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you…Acts 17:23 Paul didn’t discount their knowledge or their journey, he revealed the truth of the things they were already plugged in to and gave revelation to the course of their journey.
As a body the church looks very different all over, we have those who believe in spiritual gifts and those who believe those are a relic of the past, we have dancers and stoically reverent worshipers, we have rock music and hymns, as humans we so wish to be validated in our correctness we forget that a body can’t be made of all thumbs. Coming on the race I have seen 50 people from different experiences and denominations come together to say collectively “I don’t know it all but I want to”. It takes all kinds and when we realize that we are able to reach our hands out in invitation rather than to strike. My experience is not your experience and that doesn’t make it any less real, or holy or beautiful. It is so easy to tell someone they are wrong but a true follower of Christ, like Paul, will look for the bridge rather than only seeing the chasm.This is a call to listen to your brother and see the hurt in your sister. This is a moment of decision where you choose to ignore or to accept the fact that you have the ability to grow and nurture life in other people.
