I saw a friend, Josh Slocum, of
, pose this question here on Substack, and as I’ve met many many people who have had this question, I hope he won’t mind that I’m going to share my own answer here.You just talk to him.
God knows you don’t believe. Or that you may want to believe but are having trouble. God knows you haven’t paid attention to him in a long time or maybe ever. God knows every deep, dark thought you’ve had, every time you’ve been uncharitable or unkind, every time you’ve chosen the path of evil over the path of good. And he still loves you.
God knows the ways you’ve constructed your identity to be around meaningless things, like a mask you wear, hiding your true self. God knows and loves who you really are; who he knew you to be before your parents were even born. Not these false constructs we build up based on our sex or race or sexuality or bad things that happened to us when we were kids, or bad things we’ve done and can’t get over, or good things we’ve done and taken so much pride in we built our sense of self around it. Your successes are not your identity. Your failures are not your identity. The abuse you suffered is not your identity. You are so much bigger. You are a soul - something eternal. A beloved child of God. Yearning for reunion with the creator and trying unsuccessfully to placate that soul yearning with human things of the world.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” Jeremiah 1:5
When you hear that, when you hear God whispering about things eternal to your very soul, it is a feeling of homecoming. It is a feeling of something that had been dead in you, coming to life. Something that was always there: you just didn’t have the eyes to see or the ears to hear. Like the prodigal son, who arrogantly squandered his inheritance until he was living amongst the pigs, God open his arms to us in celebration when we come home to him. He runs out in the street to welcome us and insists everyone throw a party to celebrate.
“So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.” Luke 15:20-22
At the beginning of my own walk with God, I had squandered my inheritance from our Father. I had searched for meaning and pleasure and fulfillment and identity in worldly things, and it lead me, eventually, to the darkest place I have ever been. For some of us, we are very stubborn. We are the children who, when told not to touch a hot stove, must touch the hot stove for ourselves to learn why. We are the children of God who chased hedonism and drink and ideology and experience to the ends of the earth until we realized we’d somehow become a slave to all of this “freedom.” Some of us, like myself, can only see the Light when we arrive at the darkest place. I was a person who required the bit and the hook.
“And because of your raging against me and your arrogance, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth. I will make you return by the same road on which you came.” Isaiah 37:29
That’s how stubborn I was, how determined I was to look for meaning and peace everywhere but the one place I eventually found it: God. Asking God for help requires humility, which for some, can only be attained in the dark. It requires us to let go of the human arrogance of thinking we know and understand everything. It requires letting go of the sarcastic, worldly scoffer in our head who has been culturally raised to mock and shame any belief that we are more than just physical bodies and computer brains. It requires opening one’s mind enough to ask: “what if?”
Broken, and in servitude to worldly things, I looked up from the darkest pit of despair and I finally dared to ask God: “Are you there? I know I don’t really believe in you, but if you are there, I need help.” This is HOW you talk to God in the beginning. You might ask simply for help.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.“ Matthew 7:7-8
If you try this and are not getting the answers you want in the way you want immediately: God is not a genie. God is not Santa Claus. God is not some magic in your own head who can be used for you to attain worldly things and more of the same. God is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Pursuing God is pursuing Truth. Pursuing God is learning the Way to be in the world. The way of Life.
You may start to look at things differently. The more you read scripture, the better for your path. You will start to understand things differently. You will start to have a PEACE. Your identity won’t be some mask you’ve cobbled together of worldly accomplishments, failures, tragedy, race, sex, sexuality, things that have happened to you - you will start to think of yourself as simply a Child of the Most High God.
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:26-28
Over time, if you stay on the path, you may start to understand just how very little you know about God. How much there is to discover. You may start to view the happenings in the world from a different place, from a place of knowing that the Alpha and the Omega is he who sits on the throne through all cycles of human progress and chaos. You may start to understand in your soul that the answers to worldly chaos reside in each of us and the choices we make daily, to pursue God or not. To try to walk to narrow path or not. You may come to see God’s commandments not as cruel restrictions on freedom from a tyrannical God, but as boundaries and guidelines to best ensure mankind’s freedom, peace and joy, laid out by a Father who loves us and wants to keep us from having to touch the hot stove.
God celebrates over finding and bringing home even one lost sheep. His joy is a contagious joy that can touch and fill the heart of even the most world-weary, hardened skeptic. Sometimes it hurts, finding God, but once you have found him you do not mind being hurt. Ask me how I know.
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco
Writing on this subject made me think of the song, “Oh Lord” by NF. You can listen here if curious. The lyrics:
When I die, put my ashes in the trash bag
I don't care where they go
Don't waste your money on my gravestone
I'm more concerned about my soul
Everybody's gon' die
Don't everybody live though
Sometimes I look up to the sky
And wonder do You see us down here?
Oh Lord, oh Lord, do You see us down here?
Oh Lord, oh Lord
Listen, yeah everybody wants change
Don't nobody wanna change though
Don't nobody wanna pray
Till they got something to pray for
Now everybody's gon' die
But don't everybody live though
Sometimes I look up to the sky
And wonder do you see us down here?
Oh Lord, oh Lord, do You see us down here?
Oh Lord, oh Lord
It's easy to blame God but harder to fix things
We look in the sky like, "why ain't You listening?"
Watching the news in our living rooms on the big screens
And talking 'bout "if God's really real, then where is He?"
You see the same God that you saying might not even exist
Becomes real to us, but only when we dying in bed
When ya healthy it's like, we don't really care for Him then
Leave me alone God, I'll call you when I need you again
Which is funny, everyone will sleep in the pews
Then blame God for our problems like He sleeping on you
We turn our backs on Him, what do you expect Him to do?
It's hard to answer prayers when nobody's praying to you
I look around at this world we walk on
It's a smack in the face, don't ever tell me there's no God
And if there isn't then what are we here for?
And what are y'all doing down there? I don't know Lord
Oh Lord, oh Lord, do You see us down here?
Oh Lord, oh Lord
Do You see us down here? Oh Lord
Can You see us down here? Oh Lord
Oh Lord, oh Lord
Can You see us? Can't You see us?
This is so perfectly written, Keri. I saw Josh’s post yesterday, and replied to him, and thought how hard it is to try and find the best way to open the door to Joy a bit for Josh with a few sentences. You’ve done it.
Thanks Keri. It brought back memories of my journey from hedonism, drug abuse and alcoholism to finding peace and freedom in Christ. I encourage anyone who reads this to surrender themselves to the Father who loves them.