Seeker or Sought?

I really enjoyed the sermon I heard this morning and thought I would share some thoughts from it. For the second week in a row, the text was about Jesus calling his first disciples - last week was John's account, and this week was Mark's. The pastor emphasized the fact that these disciples were going about their normal work when Jesus called them, that they weren't a very spiritual group seeking God at all but that Jesus sought them out. The real trick in the passage is that when Jesus told the men to follow him, the text simply tells us they did. We don't know the circumstances they left or the emotions they felt or any decisions they weighed; we simply read that they responded to Jesus' call, and we know that ultimately this response changed all their lives.

The preacher put a spin on the idea we often have of seeking God, that people who go on a spiritual quest to "find God" are often very lost to themselves, that the distance we feel from God is often related to confusion or lostness in ourselves. He reminded us that God is not far off for us to search out and pursue but that God is constantly pursuing and wooing and inviting us to follow Him. When we do that, it is not uncommon to find ourselves in the process.

After all, how can we know ourselves without understanding the One who made us? Believing and trusting and trying are all tangled up in the idea of seeking God, but without understanding that He is also seeking us, those pursuits may end up in a wild goose chase. On the flip side, having faith that God comes after us can be the inspiration we need to take those steps that can bring us to Him.

This is very helpful to me right now as I am in a good place with God but not a good place with church. If I stick to the rules that I have always known, then I must settle down and get involved and put my faith into actions as a committed part of some congregation. My faith in people is shaky though, so the only steps I trust myself to take right now are to chase after God, to worship Him with others, and to believe that He knows where I belong even when I do not. I'm not afraid to lose Him, since He found me in the first place.