Seeeeeeeek

Talking to a friend this afternoon, I got to thinking about the times that life takes you right up to and past what you're able to handle. One anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, calls this a "limit of endurance," and suggests that it's one form of limit that religion helps people transcend.

I think we all have limits to our endurance, or at least we think we do. But then God takes you by the hand and walks you right up to that point and says, "we're going over there." You would never go by choice, but then you have to. Suddenly you are beyond what you can bear. What's going to hold you together at that point?

We all turn to something. Friends, family, denial, daydreams, alcohol, whatever. People who have some connection to God want to turn to him, but where is he? That makes it worse, when you need him more than ever and you can't find him. "Why have you forsaken me?"

Maybe God isn't showing up easily because we need him to be hard to find. Rich Mullins has a song called "Hard to Get," about being in utter despair and not finding God right there waiting for you. When you're in anguish, you're fixated on that thing that is killing you -- whether you're dwelling on it to try to solve it or trying with all your might to avoid or forget it. And the human mind doesn't handle a vacuum well, so you dwell and dwell and obsess and fuss and worry and this thing sinks its claws into you and hauls you off a cliff.

I think the important thing in those moments is to keep looking. Jeremiah 29:13 says "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart." Seeking God is important even when things are horrible. And when things are amazing. All the mental energy that wells up inside you in moments of emotional pressure can have a productive outlet. Turn your attention from solving the problem to seeking the Provider. When the world tugs at your heart and wants you to worry, orient that hunger toward God himself. Seek him with all your heart and watch him show up.

I think he will keep just the right distance to make you seek him enough to find him right when you REALLY need him. And at that point finding him means so much more than it would have at the moment of crisis. This goes for delirium as well as despair. Don't focus on what's got you transfixed in this world. Seek him and find him. Then watch what he's got in mind for you on the other side of the trial.