Finding God in the Everyday

“…And there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see….
But everywhere I go…. I'm looking…” ~Rich Mullins from Here in America

Where do you find God? Only in church? Only when listening to Christian music? Only in the lives of the religious people and ordained ministers? If that is our limit to recognizing God, we are missing the point of the Christian life. I see God in both in religious and secular music, in both Christians and Non-Christians, and especially in nature. The point is not: Is God there? The point is: Are we willing to see Him there? We compartmentalize the holy and the secular and we think that it is so easy to always tell them apart. Is it possible to be so focused on finding God that we miss him when He’s right in front of us?

I see God in a colorful sunset… in a newborn baby…. in a stranger stopping to help someone change a flat tire….and in a 65-year mother taking in her divorced son when he had nowhere else to go. Stop trying to put God in a box. Stop trying to be so strong and prove to the world that you have it all together. I believe in going to church as much as possible and I am a faithful member. I believe in prayer. I listen to Christian music more than any other kind of music. I serve God by singing in a praise band at my church.  But I know that God can be seen in so many other things. I feel His presence when I am doing right or when I fail, when I sing, or dance, or laugh. His presence supersedes all the visions and perceptions I have of Him; his presence is the only reality I need. He is so much more than we could ever believe or imagine.

As I said before, after 40 I have more questions than ever. Here are a few. Are people with money and possessions blessed by God and poor people cursed?  If we pray and God doesn’t answer our prayer the way we want Him to, did we do something wrong?  Why do some people with cancer beat it and live a long life, while others don’t survive? Having doubts and questions is common to all believers.

Do we truly believe Jesus loved everyone or just the ones who acted right or repented? In my Bible He hung out with tax collectors, criminals, and lepers. Yet he chooses to hang out with us. Do we believe in the polished, clean Jesus who had white skin and shining blue eyes or the one who laughed and cried, had dirty feet, and died a cruel death so covered in blood that it was hard to tell he was human? I believe in the Jesus of the Bible and I’m not sure I believe in the “holier than thou”. People who say they have it all figured out scare me to death.

I don’t have God figured out and neither do you.  But I know grace is reality and so is the reality of God all around me. I pray, like Rich Mullins, that I never stop looking.