We All Are Drawn, No Shame In That

If you wonder why your thoughts are drawn to God only when you are in midst of some challenges, know you are not alone. None of us seek God outside of challenges of life. Not even the holiest of us all.

Do not let yourself feel any shame whatsoever when your thoughts are drawn towards God — you are not alone in this; this is the common thread in Brotherhood and Sisterhood of seekers after God — we all are drawn.

None of us are self starters at seeking after God. We all are drawn of Him, by Him for our good.

If God did not love us, rather than spend His time attempting to draw our attention in midst of a storm, He would spend His time laughing, dancing, and pointing out our pain for the whole universe to see. That He spends His time trying to draw our attention is evidence He cares, He loves, He wants what’s best for us.

That God attempts to draw us to Himself whenever we feel all by ourselves in some hell or storm is evidence He deeply cares, loves, and desires what is best for us.

My thoughts were first drawn to God at age of 18 — an age at which I confess it was difficult to feel ashamed to be having thoughts about my relationship with God. I was part of an advance High School cohort being used to assess and arrive at tweaking of a move from a 5-year High School system to a 6-year system. I wrote the British style school leaving exams (GCE), and university entrance exams in my fifth year, and did well. Then the Government somehow identified culprits like myself and ensured our university entrance scores were withdrawn, nullified for purpose of securing entrance into College.

Naturally I was mad as hell. I was still mad as hell after I completed that sixth year of High School and had to write university entrance exams all over again. My present self does not use the expression, but my 18-year old self felt and acted like, “What the Fuck did God just allow happen to me?”

That was God’s opportunity to begin working on me. I am thankful to my younger self for having the wisdom to engage with God, as opposed to attempting of pushing away the Spirit of God.

Everyone gets opportunity in midst of one challenge or the other to be drawn by God. Let us choose to engage with God in meaningful dialogue. There is dialogue that merely pushes away and dialogue that seeks for evidence, clarity, meaningfulness.

In my case, the Spirit of God pointed out the fact that I did not feel I had the right to be praying to God. That was true. Every time I tried to pray I felt like I did not have the right to be so doing (I know why now). Then God pointed out I was not quite as holy as I felt I was. I did not have any good retorts for that truth because God had placed someone in my circles I had a lot of difficulty loving in sense of loving a neighbor.

Lastly, God in a sense made me realize I was a ticking emotional bomb. That part I sort of wanted to hang on to, after all look what just happened to me.

Many people just like my younger self love their anger, but anger never really solves anything, just makes us feel like we are not helpless even when in fact we are in truth. It is always okay to get angry at injustice. It is attempting to maintain that initial anger, an attempt that makes us feel like we are doing something even when in reality are not doing anything meaningful, that is unhealthy. True change is brought about by intersection of justice and mercy, never by intersection of anger (vengeance) and justice. Aftermaths of First and Second World Wars attest to this truism.

I choose to respond to God and instantaneously my seething anger was gone. In its place a joy I never could have produced within myself. The best part? The seeming injustice I was so upset about? God turned into a meaningful blessing in my life. God took the lemon I chose to hand over to Him and made some of the sweetest lemonade the world ever has seen. This is the realest truest miracle of spirituality.

If any of us know God, we did not find Him out. He always seized opportunity to seek us out. One thing we all had to do, however, is put pride aside, listen to, and take time to reason with God. If we are honest with ourselves we tend to find out He is right about most things we discuss. I ended up acknowledging Jehovah and His Son Jesus Christ, and what an adventure that has turned out to be over the course of the last 27 years.

I was glad when I acknowledged Jesus Christ 27 years ago. I remain glad now, today 27 years down the road.