It’s irritating to flit from one thing to the next without purpose. It’s exciting, sure, but it’s shallow. It’s what church hoppers do. It’s what men do who are afraid to commit. It’s what all people do when they want to keep life “fresh” without pursuing a life of real meaning.
How do we live a life of purpose? We do what God has chosen for us. He doesn’t map out every second and stand over us with a whip (like I used to believe), but he also doesn’t watch passively for entertainment.
How do we know what God wants us to do? We have to know him.
How do we know God? We do two things: we truths about him so we can know about him and we spend time with him so we know him personally. We spend time with him by having conversations (two-sided) with him .
These are simple answers. They are NOT easy to follow. Why doesn’t everyone get to know God? We are afraid of him. We believe he doesn’t exists. We believe he doesn’t care. We are afraid to believe that he spoke to us because we think it’s probably going to be our own twisted subconscious playing tricks on us. Whatever the reason, we hide from him.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned and then hid from God. They heard him call and they hid in fear. God didn’t abuse them. He didn’t yell at them. He was very compassionate and caring. It was people who separated themselves from God, not the other way around. We have done the separating and God has been pursuing us ever since.
Most of us have exactly opposite beliefs to the truth. We see him as judgmental, unloving, uncaring, indifferent, slave-driving, etc. But he has never given us reason to believe these things. They are the result of our sin. We look at ourselves. We see what we think we deserve. Then we assign character values to God by assuming how he responds to our mess.
Get ahold of this. It will set you free. You hide from God. NOT the other way around. Stop hiding. Take a chance. And if you’re not ready to, take some time to learn about the loving God who is pursuing you so you can learn enough good facts about him to warrant a risk on your part.