The Search for God
The Catholic foundation forms most fellowships of Christianity
‘You will seek Me and find Me’
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13
Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head,l Christ,* 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love. Ephesians 4:15-16
Why folks fail to join with Catholics or other Christians
It comes down to bland excuses, a history of fraudulent god examples, or earthly premises of god as money, fame, power, or beauty. Maybe, all three! The common theme here is we forgo Christianity because we have the wrong notions of who God is. Christianity appears to be an amalgom of all that is wrong with the common misconceptions of God.
We have ample access to well-documented blather that God is distant, absent, and uncaring, but these are simplistic hand-waving cliches. Excuses that distance God from us are exactly why we need to be engaged with a Church community. Close the distance and allow God to present himself. Excuses disregard God; not the other way around—that God disregards us.
We may believe that the Body of Christ is based upon a fraudulent premise. Jesus is not who he said he was. Saying Jesus is not God is a deception, but at least not believing in Jesus is being honest to what we know. It’s a fair position to hold. God is charged with convincing us otherwise. We, of course, should give God the duty of informing us, and allow ample evidence to mount up. Give God a shot at explaining who God is.
If we are biased against our Christian upbringing or how we were evangelized, for whatever reason, that narrows God’s reach. If we need to set aside what we have experienced, there are plenty of other Christian communities that God will send to us. God is in every corner of the Churches that praise and worship him. Trust in God, not our traumas, or our unsure selves.
Mostly, cordoning ourselves off from the Catholic faith, or any fellowship of Christianity, could simply be having a wrong notion about God. The primary mistake is believing God is absent, uninterested, hands off, or difficult to deal with. Most of the gods that people refuse to believe in are sufficiently authoritative and powerful, but missing the necessary ingredients of a competent, loving creator. Folks trained or brain-washed into believing in insufficient gods have every reason to abandon them. That’s just good judgment.
God as Father may make sense, or send us running for our lives. God as Son, brother, and redeemer attracts all kinds of people, but also turns folks off. God as Spirit is a likely safe beginning to enter into a relationship with God. Pick whichever path works for you. God as one means he’ll introduce you to all his persons, eventually. Maybe not until you pass into the next life, but . . .
We may give credence to the spirit gods we hear about, but most are untouchable and non-communicative. One legion of spirits is woefully dangerous. Spirit gods often fall into the "wrong notion category,” too. The Holy Spirit is as powerful as God gets. Once you enter into the transcendent realm, though, you do invite the non-Holy to get your attention. Be careful. If any spirit purposely denies Jesus, step away. The Holy Spirit points us to Jesus Christ.
End-of-rope excuses
If the following three things apply to you, seek help. You’re likely unable to direct yourself toward holiness once you’ve been enveloped in spirals, despairs, and uncontrollable pessimism.
Besotted - addicted to drugs, work, sex, news, and so on. Therefore, unable to join a Christian community of faith.
Beleaguered - worn out, stressed, and under pressure. Consequently, we have no time to be involved.
Betrayed - cheated on by family, friends, Church, God, employers, employees, neighbors, government, bad luck, and more.
These afflictions require counseling and repair before joining up with a Church.
Excerpts about God from the Adult Catechism
The Desire for God
The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.
The forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being
But this “intimate and vital bond of man to God” can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man.
Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness.
But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, “an upright heart,” as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God.
Ways of Coming to Know God
Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments,” which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.
Starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
The soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material,” can have its origin only in God.
Thus, in different ways, we humans can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls ‘God.’”
Man’s faculties (Man as humankind, both male and female) make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.
Credible folks who speak of Christianity
C.S. Lewis - There are three things that spread the Christ-life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names—Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s Supper. At least, those are the three ordinary methods. I am not saying there may not be special cases where it is spread without one or more of these. I have not time to go into special cases, and I do not know enough. If you are trying in a few minutes to tell a man how to get to Edinburgh you will tell him the trains: he can, it is true, get there by boat or by a plane, but you will hardly bring that in. And I am not saying anything about which of these three things is the most essential. My Methodist friend would like me to say more about belief and less (in proportion) about the other two. But I am not going into that. Anyone who professes to teach you Christian doctrine will, in fact, tell you to use all three, and that is enough for our present purpose. Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (Kindle Locations 883-890). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Saint Athanasius - The Greek philosophers say that the universe is a great body, and they say truly, for we perceive the universe and its parts with our senses. But if the Word of God is in the universe, which is a body, and has entered into it in its every part, what is there surprising or unfitting in our saying that He has entered also into human nature? If it were unfitting for Him to have embodied Himself at all, then it would be unfitting for Him to have entered into the universe, and to be giving light and movement by His providence to all things in it, because the universe, as we have seen, is itself a body. But if it is right and fitting for Him to enter into the universe and to reveal Himself through it, then, because humanity is part of the universe along with the rest, it is no less fitting for Him to appear in a human body, and to enlighten and to work through that. St. Athanasius (2009-08-19). On the Incarnation - Enhanced Version (Kindle Locations 803-809). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. - Together with Jesus, the disciples constituted a contrast society, symbolically representing the new and renewed Israel. The number of the inner group was itself symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel, headed by the sons of Jacob. The community of the disciples, with its exceptional style of life, was intended to attract attention, like a city set upon a mountaintop or a lantern in a dark place. It had a mission to remind the rest of the people of the transcendent value of the Kingdom of God, to which the disciples bore witness. It was therefore important for them to adopt a manner of life that would make no sense apart from their intense personal faith in God’s providence and his fidelity to his promises. Dulles, Avery (2002-05-14). Models of the Church (pp. 200-201). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Mother Teresa - I don’t think there is anyone who needs God’s help and grace as much as I do. Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak. I think that is why God uses me. Because I cannot depend on my own strength, I rely on Him twenty-four hours a day. If the day had even more hours, then I would need His help and grace during those hours as well. All of us must cling to God through prayer. My secret is very simple: I pray. Through prayer I become one in love with Christ. I realize that praying to Him is loving Him. Mother Teresa (2010-10-04). No Greater Love (p. 3). New World Library. Kindle Edition.