The Greatest Pursuit
I have been taught that the greatest pursuit, indeed the greatest virtue, is to seek to know and understand the mysteries of God. In the past I have tried so hard to present myself as a son who does this. I have exhausted myself trying to prove to my Father that I want to know everything I can about Him. The pursuit has often left me drained and confused. I have never been able to understand why He doesn’t seem impressed by my determination and faithfulness to the task.
Recently, I heard a preacher say something so challenging and provocative that the statement just won’t leave me alone. He said “God is not a God of answers; He is a God of promises.” This has been a very challenging and thought-provoking message for me. Probably because I have so many questions that I would like Him to answer.
I have been taught that the greatest pursuit, indeed the greatest virtue, is to seek to know and understand the mysteries of God.
I truly believe that having the answers would be of great benefit to myself and to others. Apparently God doesn’t think the same way I do. He just isn’t giving me the answers I so desperately desire. He does, however, keep repeating His promises. The most common responses to my questions are “You can trust me” and “You are forgiven; it isn’t necessary to keep repenting and asking me to forgive you.”
I’m slowly beginning to comprehend that God simply wants me to bask in the “Divine Presence of Him.” There are questions that will never be answered because I simply cannot understand the answers. For instance, I will never be able to understand how God can say, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zeph. 3:17) It does not seem reasonable for those promises to be true when I am hurting, confused, exhausted, and lonely in life. It does not seem reasonable when I see people I love and care for experience hardship and pain, people that I know love God and believe in Him. Yet, there it is in black and white. God’s promise says He will “rejoice over us with gladness.”
His presence is teaching me that He made us so that we can feel. We are capable of feeling the entire gambit of emotions: from intense mind and body numbing grief to euphoric joy. From spine tingling fear to breathless wonder and peace. The difficulty is that although God made us so that we could feel it all, He never intended that we would feel it all. Can God be rejoicing over us and at the same time weep with us? Yes, I believe that He can. He rejoices in the beauty of His creation; He made us so we can feel and we do. Yet at the same time He weeps because this broken creation inflicts so much pain on His beloved. He experiences every bit of the pain that we do. At the same time, He rejoices and weeps.
Therefore, the greatest pursuit and virtue is simply to know God. With Paul I cry out, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:10-11) Although we will never understand Him, we are intended to know him. Jesus actually defined this as eternal life, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (Jn 17:3)