I have found God in Chapel, hands raised and eyes closed.
I have found God in summer camps and stargazing backpacking trips.
I have found God in revival concerts and dramatic redemptive filled skits.
I have found God at the bottom of coffee cups and Bible App devotional plans.
I have found God in my roommates feminist rants, life stories and inside jokes.
I have experienced God in many different places, at different times and with different people.
And right now, I am in a season of wanting so.much.more of him.
These past few days, I keep feeling as if I'm backtracking for God in all the unhealthy ways you back track for past relationships. In places where the feelings are lingering but are no longer there, where there is nothing but bittersweet memories of where you left certain moments. I keep feeling as if I am recycling a God who is new and present every single day.
Our God is not one who is anything compared to stale, left over memories.
He is present and real right now.
But I'm at this place where I can't help but feel that I am searching for him in all the mundane, ritualistic and well boring places. And so, this semester, heck even this year. Instead of falling in love with God all over again, I want to meet him continuously over and over again as if it were the first time. Meet him in the places I would never expect or even look to find him.
You know those moments when you meet someone new? It's refreshing and inviting, you learn all the ways that you are similar, their likes and dislikes and passions that they have and maybe even share. It leaves you giddy for future meetings with that person and your hopefully continuous relationship, but sometimes that joy and frivolous attitude fades. See, I think our generation is obsessed with meeting new people, we like new things and new conversations and new adventures and places to go and people we could be. But then there's that dangerous aspect of meeting new people because sometimes we never get past the surface level "Let's-get-coffee-but-never-do" relationship.
So I have this notion, that I want to have THAT with God. THAT as in, I want to have the whole "Hey-I'm-meeting-you-for-the-first-time" but over and over again AND have coffee with him... continuously. Keep the giddy but not superficial, keep the striving to reach deeper and not stay at surface level. I want to dive head first into the vulnerable, messy, doubtful and beautiful parts of what it means to get to know Christ all over again.
Tonight during Senior Chapel, Pastor Khristi said it perfectly when she talked about truly knowing and loving God, as a continuous "rediscovering" of who he is. That ultimately, it's this process of
"A C T I V E L Y P U R S U I N G W H O L E N E S S " with God.
YES. If there's anything I don't want, its a halfhearted relationship with anyone or anything. I want whole, pure unadulterated diving head first into rediscovery and I want that everyday with none other than my own Creator.Lately, I have found God in poetry, the restless nights where my mind refuses to sit still.
I have found him in the work of the creative people who pour their everything into this art and hope that it pours back into them just as much.
I have found God in an unlikely friend who is filled with wisdom, who is loving in the way that roughens you up a bit first and in the way his occasional cynicism always leaks a trace of hope.
I have found God in the discomfort of change, and unfamiliar or uncomfortable moments.
I have found God in the faces of precious little babies who are just the embodiment of a tenderness and grace that can only come from him.
I have found God in the infinite laughter and sass of my staff members.
I have found God in the excitement of new dreams and projects, the type of excitement that bubbles over your passion and purpose cup making you rest a little easy, yet also too exhilarated to fall asleep.
I have found God in the unknown, the plans and to-do-lists that are essentially thrown up into the abyss of nothing causing me to HAVE TO completely trust in the fact that someone has to be orchestrating some type of direction for my life.
And with all this,
I want to continue finding God.
In the new, the unexpected adventures and unlikely encounters.
I want to do more than just fall in love with God this semester, I want to actively purse a wholeness with him, rediscover the reasons why I know he is present, who I know him to be and who I don't know him to be.
We fall in love too much with things, people and stuff, its become sort of this trend, but what would it mean to actively pursue a wholeness pursuit in rediscovering our God and the people he has put in our lives?
That is my heart this semester, expressed in late night blog post ramble and meaning every word.
So, what this look like?
I have NO IDEA but hope it looks something a long the line of an active, continuous, wholehearted, daring pursuit for so much more of him and all that he has intended.
Ah yes please.
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