Amongst such a plethora of possible answers to the above question, how can I even begin to identify the right answer?
But it is not as though I am the first
person to begin this journey.
Over millennia, people have struggled with
these questions and have found answers that they were convinced
were right, and they succeeded in convincing others that they
were right, and in this way they created religion. But different
people found different answers, and founded different religions,
and different subsets of religions, and as they continued to
develop their conclusions they began to find them so incompatible
with the conclusions of other religions/denominations that they
sometimes killed each other as a result.
If God exists, can He be found in this confusion,
perversity and misery? Surely not!
But, if God exists, could He be found anywhere
else?
Or perhaps, if God exists, can He be found
at all?
Taking these questions in reverse order,
if God does exist, and if He has any sort of plan for me and
my life, then it must be possible to find Him. If I cannot find
Him, then to all intents and purposes, for me He doesn't exist.
So pursuing this question proved futile to me.
To tackle then, the second question: Can
He be found outside of the vast confusing maelstrom of existing
religions? (And within this I include everything that is New
Age) My conclusion was that if God exists, I would not be the
first to find Him - He did not create all of this just for me.
So others must have found Him before me.
And therefore - as abhorrent as it may seem
that God may be found amongst what seems from the outside to
be bigotry, delusion and confusion - if He exists to be found,
that is exactly where He must be.
But within so many mutually incompatible,
and yet strongly held, beliefs, where should I begin looking?
At the same time as I was wrestling with
these questions, we moved to a little village. We wanted to become
integrated into village life - to do the whole 'village-thing'.
In the centre of the village was a church, and we started to
go there one Sunday a month - for family service - to do the
'village-thing'. And I found that some of the sermons, and some
of the hymns, gave me further things to think about and further
bits of the jigsaw puzzle started to fit into place. So I felt
if I was going to go looking for God, I might as well start there.
Within the Christian church there is a prayer
to become a Christian, which goes something like: "Lord
Jesus Christ, I am sorry for the things I have done wrong in
my life. I know you died on the cross to save me from my sins,
and I now ask your forgiveness and turn from everything which
I know is wrong. Please come into my life and fill me with your
Holy Spirit". But I didn't start with that prayer - I guess
I have never been one for front doors; I like to skirt around
the back a little first.
As I started to read up on this nominal faith
of my country of birth, I began to understand what these words
really mean. Accepting that Jesus' death could save me from my
sins meant accepting that Jesus himself was God, and that my
sins were in reality deviations from His will. Turning from wrong,
and accepting Him into my life meant subjugating my decisions
and actions to His. In my mind, praying 'the prayer' translated
into 'Whatever You tell me to do, I will do, whatever it is!'
I began to see the prayer as a frightening thing.
But why? There is much more evidence that
Jesus existed and was 'good', than for virtually any other contemporary
historical event that we now take for granted. Many people have
sincerely prayed similar versions of this prayer over centuries,
and those with a strong faith who I have met or have read about
were essentially 'good' people. If God does exist, then would
a 'good' person lie about Him or try to usurp Him?
And yet that prayer continued to worry me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that I was signing
over my will to a 'bad' force. Occasionally, when I had reasoned
with myself enough, I would get to a point where I would pray:
"Lord, if you were to clearly to ask me to do something
now, I would do it, whatever it is" but each time I would
be holding something back - I didn't really mean it.
I grew to understand more about the Christian
faith, and about Christians, and about people who called themselves
Christians. I came to see how easily what sets out 'good' gets
distorted into 'bad', and to know what was meant by the 'narrow
path'. I began to be able to differentiate God from the people
who try to act in His name (and also people who simply think
they are).
And I began to see a greater and deeper wisdom
behind it all. And at the end of the day, if I was going looking
for God, I wasn't going to find Him on equal terms.
And eventually, after about another six months,
still full of trepidation, I prayed 'the prayer' and I meant
it. I meant 'whatever'! I trusted that if He existed then He
would have His reasons, and they would be 'good' even if I thought
they were wrong. I really meant 'whatever'!
And as I prayed it, and really meant it,
I felt His presence, and I felt within the core of my being a
sense that He didn't want me to do anything except be willing
to do what He asked. I felt that I had found God, and that He
loved me, and that He understood me, and that He loved me despite
understanding me.
And yes I am sure the rationalists could
find another explanation for what happened, but then, if you
don't believe in God you have to find another explanation - it
doesn't make it any more true.
And since that point, there have been other doubts, and there
have been other confirmations, and I have begun to realise that
'finding God' is a journey and not an event.
So which route should I have chosen?
About six months after praying 'the prayer'
for real, I was wrestling with an ethical dilemma. It was one
of those grey areas where right and wrong are not clear, and
at the heart of it was a question over loyalty to my employer
or loyalty to my friend. As I prayed, half asleep, I had the
impression of a word continuously repeated in a passage in the
bible, and the numbers 31, 8, 24 were in my mind, and the book
'Ezekiel' - not one which I had ever read. And sure enough, chapter
31 was all about trees, and the 24th word of the 8th verse was
'trees'. It was all about pride, and I know I struggle with that,
but I couldn't for the life of me see what it had to do with
the current issue. I tried, and I tried, but it was all tenuous.
I kept going back to it, and the 24th word of the 8th verse,
and then I noticed it had a little NIV cross reverence letter.
I couldn't get any further than where I was, so I looked it up
- Genesis 30:37 - one of only two readings in the bible where
somebody begins to 'cheat' their employer with God's blessing.
God knows I struggle with doubts, and that
at times I can be really creative in finding rational explanations
that exclude Him. Through the experience outlined above, He gave
me a spiritual confirmation that I couldn't rationalise, and
He gave it to me through prayer and the Bible. God is big - far
bigger than the human intellect can encompass.
I don't really know how many routes you can
get to Him by, but I do know that He found me on the path that
I took, and that He confirmed that it was the path for me, and
that I am to follow it with all my heart. And I also know that
I am to believe it is the only path. I don't know why I am to
believe that, but I do know that each time I struggle with the
path, if I focus on the path and accept it as right and my prejudices
as wrong, I am forced to wrestle new insights from God, and I
learn something new, and I grow.
And perhaps it is the only path. That conclusion
worries me a lot, but He is greater and wiser than I am - I simply
have to play my part as best I can, and to trust in Him for the
rest.
[Back]
© Tesseract Management Systems Ltd 2003
(click below for an oversight)
Case studies of success: transforming organisational performance through QFD
Managing by Design
- a handbook of
Systematic Mgt.
(purchase on line)
Excellence through systematic management: a brief overview of Tesseract's approach
(insight)
Testimonials on systematic management
For more detail:
How we see the management issue.
(insight)
Tesseract's Approach
Tesseract's Services