How do you seek God?

I wrote my last post about happiness, blessings and how seeking God was the only way to find true joy or peace.  When I walked away from that, I thought...the next natural question is 'how do you seek God?' 'how do you get to know Him?'

Getting to know the Bible. That's what everyone had told me when I asked that question.

Getting into the Bible was a challenge for me.  I have to be honest.

I didn't know where to start and when I did start I had so many questions.  I think one of my first mistakes was that I was picking up the Bible when I was dealing with issues in my own life, that I wanted answers to.  I wanted to pick up the Bible and find some relatable story that would tell me what it was I needed to do.

 It wasn't happening.

Nothing seemed to have anything to do with what I felt I 'needed'.  So, back on my night stand the Bible went and I walked away in frustration.

To add to my frustration I would read blogs where people would talk about how the word of God changed their life. How? They would start their blog talking about how they were in the word and God spoke to them through it.  What? They said the answers were in there and that the Good Book, was basically their map for life. Where?  Where are these answers?  What was I missing?  Were these woman delusional?  I shut down my computer and again walked away in frustration.  I would glare at that book on my nightstand and think....'Why don't I see it?' 'Why don't you mean something to me?'

{I have to share that the last sentence I just typed brought tears to my eyes. 'Why don't you mean something to me?}

It brings tears because right now I type this blog with the Bible right next to me, on my desk, and when I glance at it I feel such love and thankfulness.  It means so much to me now. We have come a long way.  We spent some time working through the frustration.  Many of it's pages are rippled from my dried tears.

What I want, is to share with you what helped me to go from frustration to love.

I started to read the Bible, not to find answers to my problems, but to get to know God.  Big perspective change.  I decided that I needed to stop looking at the Bible as a 'fix it' book and start appreciating that it was God's story.  Which eventually led me to the realization that it was my story too.  

The passages and people took me outside of myself.  The charactors in the Bible became so real to me.  So relatable.  They were people, just like you and I.  Living life. Dealing with problems. Searching for faith.  I started to realize that although there situations may have been different than my own, their struggles were very much my own.  In getting lost in their stories I was starting to see clarity in my life.  In feeling their struggles I began to understand mine more.  Regardless of how far apart we were in time I started to realize how  people have really not changed that much, if at all over time.  It started to amaze me that these Biblical people and events that existed in a time so far away from my own, could heal me and help me in my present day situations.

I want to give you an analogy. {because I love analogies}

A person might go to the doctor and say..."My back is hurting!"  They don't understand why because they havn't been doing any heavy lifting or had any back injuries.  After careful examination the doctor realizes that the pain in their back is actually being caused by their feet! But thats so far away from the pain!  So far from the area they thought needed to be fixed! The arches of their feet are not as strong and so it has caused a strain (pain) in their back.  The solution is to wear arches in their shoes, and before long they are not feeling pain in their back.

How on Earth does this relate to the Bible?  Stay with me here.

What I am learning more and more about God is that when we ask him to help us in specific situations, He doesn't always address those specific situations in order to help us.  There are times that we feel God moving us towards things that don't make any sense.  You've been praying for let's say, more peace in your life and suddenly you feel like your getting more chaos.  At least that's how it looks to you.  In those chaotic events are lessons that you start to realize are giving you a strength that brings...you guessed it....peace!

 Your foot is far away from your back.. and so sometimes are the directions God takes you in respect to where you think you need the help.

If that person walked out of the doctors office and didn't take care of their arches in their feet, they would still have to deal with pain in their back.

If we walk away from the promptings of God that don't seem to make sense in our life, we too will still have to deal with the pain of those situations.

So when I was reading the Bible, looking for things that directly related to my issues, and didn't find them, I walked away in frustration.  I still had to deal with the pain.

It wasn't until I picked up the Bible and looked beyond myself.  Instead of seeking answers, what I sought was to get to know God better, through His  word and the people He worked through.  What I am learning is, that God can speak to us through the Bible and it's passages.  One of the things talked about over and over is how God will take care of us.  We need to trust in Him and surrender to Him.

So how do we fill our time and replace our worry and fear with trust?  We move outside of ourselves and away from ourselves.  Outside of 'our' needs... and we start to look around.  We seek other peoples stories around us.  We read the stories of the people in the Bible regardless of how far from our own lives they might seem.   We give of ourselves and start to allow God to work through us in the lives of others.

What I found was that while I allowed God to work through me to help others, He was also healing me at the same time.  The farther I get from the problems or pain in my life, the more he heals.

The more I trust His direction and promptings, (even when they don't make sense) the more everything starts to make sense.

So pick up your Bible....blow the dust off if you must....and let Him introduce you to people and situations outside of yourself.  The farther away we get from ourselves.....the closer we get to Him.

Patti