When you seek, you find...

But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. – Deuteronomy 4:29

I’ve been looking for Christ a lot lately, and I have found him. I’ve found him in the voice of a friend, and I’ve found him in the compassion of a group of men.

A friend stayed with me on Monday night, and as it usually is with this friend, I was able to open up my heart to her and she poured into me with such grace and enthusiasm. We talked about Celebrate Recovery and the journey I’ve been on the past 2 years searching for freedom from my broken relationship with my father and other men along the way, from insecurity, lust and approval addiction. We talked about my issues with scripture and the process that took me from a sold-out believer to a burnt-out believer. We talked about my hesitation to stay in Dallas and pursue what is next and my hesitation to leave Dallas and pursue what is different.

And she poured into me. I wish I could have tape recorded what she said. Now, it’s difficult to recall. The one thing I do recall is feeling, for the first time from someone else, acceptance with my struggle. It wasn’t the apathy of a non-believer or the fear of a true believer, but acceptance. She looked at me in the eyes with an earnest heart and said, “Hey, it’s okay. We all have to do it. Your questions are real. They are hard. It’s going to be okay.”

Last Thursday, another friend sat in my living room and told me how she was able to reconcile her issues with scripture. Her words were that the way that is dictated in scripture is the way that works. No matter how hard it is to believe or how uncomfortable it is at times when your tolerant heart disagrees, it’s the way that works. Time and time again, it works. I wish I had that perspective. I can’t quite wrap my mind around that, though. If it worked, why would we all interpret it so differently? If it works, why have humans taken liberties and smashed truth into the garbage bin? If it is God’s word from beginning to end, and I am God’s child, how come I can’t make sense of it? And how come He isn’t fighting for it? The fight I pick is not with scripture itself, it’s with the authority that humans have given themselves to dictate God’s message to his people. Do we really have that kind of authority? I can’t imagine that we do. I see what humans have done with authority, and it’s ugly. The God I serve is a God of beauty and wonder and peace and justice and unity—not a God of intolerance and war and divisiveness. How are we to unify the Body if we see ourselves as unequal?

Tonight, I went over to a friend's house to watch The Office premiere and met Christ there instead. Gary is a veteran who now works as a landscaper. He has 4 hernias, no steady income, and no home. Gary was participating in my friend’s community group Bible study. When I walked in, he hurried to grab me a chair. A gentleman. A gentleman whose odor I smelled before I saw him. An odor that made me nauseus, and a story that made me ill. But there, in that room, he joined men in pursuit of truth and meaningful life. Men who had invited him to join them in community and who had taken him under their wings in the name of Christ’s love. I love what I found tonight. It turns out that we are, in fact, our brother’s keeper, and that there are brothers who are keeping steady on that word.