In His Direction
In 2016, I walked into a small, garden-level room with short windows spanning the length of the back wall across from me. The space was empty except for a single church pew under the windows and a worn armless chair. Although sunlight from the small windows filled the room, it still felt like a dark closet in the back corner of a basement, which is precisely where it was situated in this small church in Denver, Colorado. I had never been to this church before. I entered in despair. I felt like my life was hitting rock bottom. There was nothing I could salvage. I couldn’t keep it afloat any longer and the path forward only looked worse. Nothing about being in this room brought me any comfort or hope. In fact, it felt more reflective of the current state of my life; cold, dark, empty, and worn out. I was giving God one last chance to intervene before my life degraded into what I would describe as an old home being swept away in flood waters. Deep in misery, I knelt down next to the pew, laid my face on the dirty cushion, and cried to God, “YOU MUST CHANGE MY LIFE! I’m not going anywhere until I hear from YOU!” Over and over again, all day with no answer. I went home, then returned the next morning in the same way and continued. But, at the end of the second day, my cry was answered in a manner that is far too difficult to describe just yet. That day was the last day of my old life and the first day of an entirely new life – one that I couldn’t have ever imagined possible. Jesus spoke to me that day. He acknowledged the condition of my life with compassion. He comforted me and began guiding me. I had no idea how much my life would change or even the slightest idea what was in my future. Every attempt I try describing what God has done since that day always feels like an inadequate description. “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”🕮 From my weak, powerless cry for His help, Jesus has done abundantly beyond all that I could possibly think or imagine.
Have you ever thought about walking toward God? For some people, walking toward God will sound entirely nonsensical. If He’s not physically present in their space, there’s no direction for them to go. For others who will read the question symbolically, they will think of it as being entirely rhetorical. The question won’t apply to a physical location. Instead, it is symbolic of being “closer” to God. Many people who have regularly attended religious sermons will interpret this question symbolically because they have been taught to understand nearly all statements about God as metaphors in some sense. Consider the innumerable list of interpretations of God mixed together with a regular dose of metaphors and there’s no question about why most Christians don’t treat God like He’s real or present. Few people talk about Him as being real or present. Even fewer treat Him as He is.
There is nothing more hopeless than believing in a God who is never actually present. Especially, when He could be the only hope you and I have right now. But, that’s the God I knew for the first 30-plus years of my life. That’s the God I knew until the day I had no hope, not one, single alternate choice except that maybe He wasn’t that kind of God. Maybe instead He was very real and very present. The way that a real God would be. Real and present. I believe it has been the same for you. You have been believing in a God who isn’t present nor real in the physical. Your God is real in the sense that he does exist, somewhere. Your God is present in the sense that He’s omnipresent because he is God. But your God is neither real nor present in giving you immediate, tangible hope for your circumstances. He’s neither real nor present for you to approach him right now. But, if you are like me, that doesn’t sit comfortably in your soul. You and I cannot continue believing in a hopeless God. We cannot continue believing in a God who isn’t real and present. You and I must be able to walk in His direction!
Try for a moment to think of God differently. God is present and near. You want to move towards Him. You must move towards Him because you know He could help you. So which direction do you go? How would you know if you were going the right way? Will you actually get up from where you are and walk or is your mind still stuck in a metaphor? You see, the true problem that you or I face before taking any step towards God isn’t that we don’t know which way to go. The true problem is that we genuinely don’t expect to find Him in any direction at all. Not only do we not know where He is, there’s no path we can think of that we imagine we’ll actually find Him. So the thought of moving in any direction doesn’t give us any confidence that we’ll be moving toward God. I couldn’t continue living my life this way. Neither should you.
At the end of the second day of praying and crying to God to help me, I went for a walk to try to find Him. I walked without direction because I didn’t know where to go. But, I remember that my heart was still in the position where I was demanding that God intervene. What I didn’t realize was something subtly changing within me. Two days earlier, I entered that church demanding that God answer me. But my mind and heart still believed in the distant, absent God. I was unknowingly at war with this belief system inside me. I thought that I was demanding that God intervene, but what I was actually demanding was the belief that He wouldn’t show up to be removed from me. It took two days for that belief to be dissolved. When it was gone, while I went on a walk to find Him, He found me. Our real, present, loving Father spoke to me! He comforted me and gave me direction. He empowered me and not a single part of my life has been the same since that day!
After everything that happened on that day and in days since, I began to realize that never before in my life did I ever expect to find God at any moment. Never did I expect to see Him, hear from Him, or experience Him with any of my physical senses. Imagine believing that the God who created “experience” didn’t expect us to “experience” Him! What a foolish way we have lived. Reflecting back on my lack of expectation, I feel embarrassed that I had boxed Him out of my life that way. God said, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”🕮 He said that we will “find” Him. If you have never heard this before, let me tell you He isn’t speaking symbolically. Frankly, what good would the instruction have been if it wasn’t leading to a real, tangible result? If you seek Him, you will find Him! He says, “with all your heart.” This not only disqualifies the disingenuous, but it also dissolves everything within you that is keeping you from finding Him! For me, I never expected to find Him until I demanded that I do; aligning my whole being with the expectation of finding Him. When you seek Jesus with your whole heart, you will seek Him with the expectation that you will find Him! Then, you will know that you can walk toward God. You will get up, move toward Him and expect His presence and meet Him wherever you go!
God is barely a stroll away from you or me. We can walk toward Him right now! All we need to do is expect Him! In my time of deepest despair, I went on a walk to find God. He found me when I expected His presence and everything in my life changed beyond adequate description. Now, I can live every day expecting His presence. So can you!
Have you ever thought about walking toward God? For some people, walking toward God will sound entirely nonsensical. If He’s not physically present in their space, there’s no direction for them to go. For others who will read the question symbolically, they will think of it as being entirely rhetorical. The question won’t apply to a physical location. Instead, it is symbolic of being “closer” to God. Many people who have regularly attended religious sermons will interpret this question symbolically because they have been taught to understand nearly all statements about God as metaphors in some sense. Consider the innumerable list of interpretations of God mixed together with a regular dose of metaphors and there’s no question about why most Christians don’t treat God like He’s real or present. Few people talk about Him as being real or present. Even fewer treat Him as He is.
There is nothing more hopeless than believing in a God who is never actually present. Especially, when He could be the only hope you and I have right now. But, that’s the God I knew for the first 30-plus years of my life. That’s the God I knew until the day I had no hope, not one, single alternate choice except that maybe He wasn’t that kind of God. Maybe instead He was very real and very present. The way that a real God would be. Real and present. I believe it has been the same for you. You have been believing in a God who isn’t present nor real in the physical. Your God is real in the sense that he does exist, somewhere. Your God is present in the sense that He’s omnipresent because he is God. But your God is neither real nor present in giving you immediate, tangible hope for your circumstances. He’s neither real nor present for you to approach him right now. But, if you are like me, that doesn’t sit comfortably in your soul. You and I cannot continue believing in a hopeless God. We cannot continue believing in a God who isn’t real and present. You and I must be able to walk in His direction!
Try for a moment to think of God differently. God is present and near. You want to move towards Him. You must move towards Him because you know He could help you. So which direction do you go? How would you know if you were going the right way? Will you actually get up from where you are and walk or is your mind still stuck in a metaphor? You see, the true problem that you or I face before taking any step towards God isn’t that we don’t know which way to go. The true problem is that we genuinely don’t expect to find Him in any direction at all. Not only do we not know where He is, there’s no path we can think of that we imagine we’ll actually find Him. So the thought of moving in any direction doesn’t give us any confidence that we’ll be moving toward God. I couldn’t continue living my life this way. Neither should you.
At the end of the second day of praying and crying to God to help me, I went for a walk to try to find Him. I walked without direction because I didn’t know where to go. But, I remember that my heart was still in the position where I was demanding that God intervene. What I didn’t realize was something subtly changing within me. Two days earlier, I entered that church demanding that God answer me. But my mind and heart still believed in the distant, absent God. I was unknowingly at war with this belief system inside me. I thought that I was demanding that God intervene, but what I was actually demanding was the belief that He wouldn’t show up to be removed from me. It took two days for that belief to be dissolved. When it was gone, while I went on a walk to find Him, He found me. Our real, present, loving Father spoke to me! He comforted me and gave me direction. He empowered me and not a single part of my life has been the same since that day!
After everything that happened on that day and in days since, I began to realize that never before in my life did I ever expect to find God at any moment. Never did I expect to see Him, hear from Him, or experience Him with any of my physical senses. Imagine believing that the God who created “experience” didn’t expect us to “experience” Him! What a foolish way we have lived. Reflecting back on my lack of expectation, I feel embarrassed that I had boxed Him out of my life that way. God said, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”🕮 He said that we will “find” Him. If you have never heard this before, let me tell you He isn’t speaking symbolically. Frankly, what good would the instruction have been if it wasn’t leading to a real, tangible result? If you seek Him, you will find Him! He says, “with all your heart.” This not only disqualifies the disingenuous, but it also dissolves everything within you that is keeping you from finding Him! For me, I never expected to find Him until I demanded that I do; aligning my whole being with the expectation of finding Him. When you seek Jesus with your whole heart, you will seek Him with the expectation that you will find Him! Then, you will know that you can walk toward God. You will get up, move toward Him and expect His presence and meet Him wherever you go!
God is barely a stroll away from you or me. We can walk toward Him right now! All we need to do is expect Him! In my time of deepest despair, I went on a walk to find God. He found me when I expected His presence and everything in my life changed beyond adequate description. Now, I can live every day expecting His presence. So can you!
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