Friday, August 29, 2008 Lost and Found By Rene Lizada Papa's Table
LET me share this story.
There was this child of a rabbi who liked to wander in the woods by himself. At first his father allowed him to go meandering but after sometime the father got worried, after all the woods was a dangerous place to be. So one day the father took his son aside and asked him, "Son I noticed that you often go to the woods, I was just wondering why you go there."
The boy replied, "I go there to find God." The father was impressed and said, "Son that is a very good thing. And I am glad that you are searching for God. But my child don't you know that God is the same everywhere?"
"Yes," the boy answered, "but I am not."
I think we have it backwards. I think that we are looking the wrong way when we say that we are looking for God. I think because of our weakness and our humanity we shall never find God. We are too weak, too arrogant, too attached to do so. We will not find God.
God will find us. That is what I believe. There will come a point in our lives when there is nothing left in us and the only way that we can go is to look up. That is the point, the moment when God reaches down His Hand and takes us in His embrace.
We face trials and challenges. We have problems and indecisions. We have dilemmas and hesitations. Or lives can become unfair, painful, frustrating, hopeless, insignificant and meaningless. We can be like that boy who goes into the woods, searching, looking in futility for something to give us meaning and worth.
And yet the sojourn to our "woods" can be a totally devastating thing because of the utter meaninglessness of the journey. We try to look for meaning in the outer world, so many of us do. So many of us have fallen into the trap of fame, popularity, power and the trappings of this earthly life.
We lust for it, crave it and even spend a great deal of energy and time trying to satisfy all that our hearts hunger and thirst for. But there comes a time, a moment when all that we have will have no meaning, will have no worth for the emptiness that sears our souls can be as real as reality.
There comes a point when enough is not enough. When pleasure becomes a burden. We can only have so much money or clothes. We can be awash with luxuries and cars and clothes and power but there will come a moment when we sit and realize and ask, "is this all there is to it?"
On the other side to it, the only time we realize the truth that God will find us and not the other way around is when we are on our knees, humbled and defeated. When we are spent and lost, when we are exhausted and frustrated. When we are broken and shattered. When we face the darkness alone, terrified beyond definition. It is at that point when, ironically, when life has lost its meaning do we understand its meaning. The light that comes from darkness is the brightest light of all.
Perhaps some of you have reached that point, perhaps some of us are so weary and so lost that we have given up on life and have surrendered our pain because we find it useless, and senseless to go on. We have reached the end of the rope of hope. And yet that is the point of resurrection, of new life for it is at that instance when all that is dark will turn to light.
The only thing that is asked of us is faith. Faith that somehow through the chaos of disbelief, the storm of confusion, God will find a way to get through us. And believe me, He will. As the song goes, God will find a way even if there is no way. Somehow He will in his infinite love and mercy reach down and take us and free us from the burdens and the sorrows of life.
Take heart those of you who are weary. Be strong those of us who are tired. God will resurrect us, God will free us.
Perhaps a writer by the name of Maude said it best. "When you have nothing left but God then for the first time you become aware that God is enough."
We are never lost because God is watching over us and He will come when it is time. And when we finally understand that we do not look for God. God will find us.
