What I Had Been Looking For Was There All Along
It was our first time in Washington state. My husband Mike and I traveled south along I-5, returning from a visit with our friend Kimmy. We were invited to attend his graduation from the University of Washington-Seattle. We stayed near Seattle-Tacoma Airport for just a few days and planned several get-togethers with Kimmy, who we had not seen in a couple of years. Since our hotel was about 17 miles south of Kimmy in Seattle, we found ourselves traveling up and down the busy interstate highway, I-5, quite a bit.
While in Washington, we wanted to take advantage of the natural attractions the state had to offer. Mike and I enjoy the outdoors and we were excited to discover what the West Coast had to offer us via Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks. We planned a hiking trip with Kimmy and his parents. As much as we would have loved to see both mountain ranges, due to the short nature of our stay, we could only hike the trails of one of these mountains for which the parks are named.
We decided on seeing Mount Olympus at Olympic National Park because it had a shorter driving distance and did not require ferry transport. Mount Olympus did not disappoint! We had a great day hiking with Kimmy and his parents, enjoyed an authentic Chinese lunch together, and took in the fresh air and sunshine. Still, we wished we were staying just one additional day, so that we could catch a glimpse of Mount Rainier. As the nation’s 17th highest summit, we were certain Mount Rainier would be a sight to behold (and hike).
An amazing realization happened while driving southbound on I-5 one sunny afternoon. Off in the far distance, almost in our direct line of vision (a bit off to the east), amid a blue sky backdrop and cottony white clouds was Mount Rainier. How did we not see it right in front of our eyes the countless other times we drove along the interstate?! The mountain itself blended perfectly into the sky blue background and its snowy-white caps were camouflaged by the clouds surrounding them. Once we saw it, it was impossible to unsee it. Though it was obscured by its environment, it was standing there all along…all 14,410 vertical feet of it.
I had often heard born-again Christians say, “I found Jesus!”. The truth is, like the massive and firmly planted Mt. Rainier, Jesus was never lost. I just didn’t know where to look to find Him. Better yet, He found me [Ephesians1:4-5 (NIV) , 1 Peter 1:2-4 (NLV)].
Before I became born-again, as an agnostic, I wondered about the capacity for humankind to know God. I doubted His existence. It took some devastating experiences in my own life to be able to feel His presence in my life and to ‘see’ He had been there all along. God is the mighty Spirit who is present in our lives, every moment of every day, obscured by the man-made environment around us. Ironically enough, Romans 1:20 (NIV) says God can be seen in the natural world all around us.
The Bible promises that those who seek God with all of their heart will find Him [Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV), Deuteronomy 4:29 (NIV), Proverbs 8:17 (NIV), Jeremiah 33:3 (NIV), Acts 17:27 (NIV), Matthew 7:8 (NIV)]. I had never sought Jesus with all of my heart, until tragedy hit home. For me, it took the disabling pain of multiple surgeries. For others, it may be a different type of hardship — a divorce, an addiction, loss of a career, or the death of a loved one, to seek and find God.
Prior to my own spiritual experience, I simply could not believe that the one and only everlasting God was approachable and perceivable through the person of Jesus Christ. He was waiting to be discovered in the pages of the old Bible that had been collecting dust on my bookshelf. He was not an enigma, rather I learned He actually wanted me, an irreligious, ‘regular’ person, to discover Him and know Him. He did not obscure Himself, but the busy man-made highways of life built up around Him, made me not see Him. And like the Mount Rainier sighting from I-5, once I saw Him, I could not unsee Him. His fingerprints are discernible all over my life and on the magnificent world in which I live.
The Holy Spirit-inspired Bible has been compared to a manual; instructions for living or even a love letter written to humankind. Since I had grown up with knowledge of the Christian religion, but no knowledge of the love of Jesus, I disregarded Christianity and its book as powerless dogma. I purposely sidestepped the Christian Jesus as I sought the God of the universe because I thought Jesus was just too easy to see. Instead, I looked for God in dark spiritual corners…in places like astrology, New Age spirituality, and even the occult. I had been looking for the divine in the hidden, underground things of the world.
As unfortunate life events led me back to the comforts of my childhood religion, I briefly thought, “God couldn’t make it this easy for us, could He?”. I was reassured by His written Word that God is love, that He desires salvation for all people, and that He invites all people to know Him. Could it be possible that I had known the answer all along…hidden within the religion of my youth in which I had half-heartedly partaken?
The world’s most practiced religion…the great name, Jesus, known on all corners of the Earth…a renowned book with tenets of righteous living…a well-known message of human salvation and relationship with God through the sacrificial death of His son…
I researched the authors of this holy book and its historical occurrences. I listened to Christian apologist’s defend the Bible with philosophy, logic and even science. But ultimately, I fell in love with Jesus and His wisdom, compassion, and lack of hypocrisy. What I had been looking for was there all along.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cece has a passion for service, whether in her health care occupation or her blogging ministry. She loves to discuss deep philosophical "why" questions about the Bible and life in general. She enjoys connecting the dots between apologetics and faith. Of course, she loves to write. You can read her most recent musings on the blog, Well Done Faithful One. She is pleased to study and teach the Word of God alongside the one (besides Jesus) whom her soul loves (Song of Solomon 3). Together, they are the happy caretakers of sweet fur babies, enjoy food, travel and outdoors, and count their daily blessings.