Finding God Near You

In my poems I try to capture how great our God is, and when I say "Our God" I include all peoples throughout the world. But, of course it is impossible to do him justice, but I still keep trying because I might help someone else to catch my fever and seek after God too. After all He does promise,"If you look for me with full commitment, you will find me."

I try to catch you with my words,

But you are elusive as an eel.

To catch the essence of you my God

But you slip through my fingers,

And will not be confined

In my understanding.

How great you are,

How small I am,

How small my picture of you.

Greatness is not enough

Splendour not sufficient

To describe you,

No word can tie you down.

I marvel at the wonder of who you are,

But my contemplation is not enough

To come near you.

And so my finite brain

Will rest in you because the work of understanding is too hard for it.

And yet you urge me on,

To try again,

To scale the heights.

Onward and upward.

Seeking after you,

My God.

In Jesus we see you,

Not a pale reflection

But the very embodiment of all that you are.

In him the immortal dies

To bring us life.

And so we should die to self

And live for him.

"O that men would praise the Lord."

O that I would.

What flimsy worship we offer you

With so little fervour,

So little energy.

Lord, stir up your spirit in me,

Get for yourself the worship due to you.

And help us cast away the trappings of our life,

That we cling to and that drag us down

May we move on to the new life

And not cling to the old.

Listen

.

When we speak of finding God we are on a dangerous adventure. In the Narnia books C.S.Lewis says that Aslan is not a tame lion. He has to be treated with respect, and so it is with God. We have to realize He is totally other, not like us with our pettiness toward each other. He is great and magnificent and fortunately full of love. He has made a way for us to come near Him. It is the only way, we cannot choose another. That way is in and through Jesus who made the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

In the first stanza of my poem I speak of trying to pin God down with my words and how impossible this is. No matter what wonderful words we use we cannot capture the essence of God. He is utterly beyond our understanding. But He sent Jesus to reveal Himself so this is why the New Testament gospels are so important. We can read the words of Jesus, and see His actions. He heals and forgives sins and speaks out against the outwardly religious who have no inner faith and no love for the people Jesus is healing.

As well as God's greatness we have to realize our smallness. We so easily think too much of ourselves and yet we can also swing the other way and do not realize how special we are. We are special because God created each one of us as unique people. We are very foolish and run away from God, when if we only realized it He is the answer to all that we need. He is the one who loves His children unreservedly. Only He can give us what we need. Our dearest friend, husband or wife cannot give us what He gives us. In fact we put an impossible burden on our loved ones when we expect them to supply what only God can give.

Just for a moment thinking of the writing I want to point out the phrase "elusive as an eel". I love the way we can make the word "eel" from letters in "elusive". I do not claim any special ability in doing this. My best poems just come to me in a moment of inspiration. I had originally written "slippery as an eel" and a friend didn't feel this was quite right for describing God. He didn't like the eel part really, but I felt as God made eels He would not mind being ever so slightly likened to one. Friends can be helpful, but you are the poet and have to have the last say.

Catching the essence of God is impossible in this life, but even so I am sure we are meant to reach out and explore who our God is. You cannot imagine what a blessing this poems has been to me. God is vast and uncatchable but even so I have found this poem bringing me closer to him. The feeling of His love for me and upon me gives me a sensation of bursting with joy. I hope you will find this joy too. Remember what I said in the introduction, God says" If you look for Me with full commitment, you will find Me."

I've called this hub "Finding God near you" You may think He is far away from you and that you have to take a long journey to find Him. You may have a long journey but it is within you.

" The kingdom of God is within you," says Jesus. "In him we live and move and have our being" says Paul. For me God is in me like the air I breathe in and as the oxygen circulates through my blood so God is even closer to me than that. This is why the best way to find God is to get on your own either out walking, if that is what you like, or in a quiet room where you can be alone. Then you can pray. Don't panic. Prayer is just thinking ,knowing that you are in the presence of God, or even just hoping that you are, if you haven't got to any stage of commitment. If you go looking for God He has promised to honour that and He will let you find Him. But we find Him in Jesus and that's where the Bible reading comes in. There are four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John which tell of Jesus life on Earth. Gently take yourself through these to make progress in seeking after God.

The last two stanzas are for me and committed christians. What a feeble lot we are when it comes to worshiping God. Surely He deserves better. There is a strong tendency to think of worship as what we do when we go to church together and that is o.k. but our best worship is when we get alone with God, because then there can be no doing things for show to impress others. Jesus tells us when we pray to God to get on our own behind closed doors. Then there can be no exhibitionism, no saying of long prayers to impress others. On our own with God we are sincere. We can bring Him problems that we can discuss with no one else. If you find you don't know what to say to God this is good. It means you are beginning to realize His greatness. Just sit and be with God, prayers don't always have words. You are seeking after God and He promises you will find Him.