Finding God

Alex A, you asked a while ago how to find God in others and this morning you asked how to find Him in the things that happen to us. I think 1) we ask the Holy Spirit to give us the singular grace of finding God everywhere and in everyone and everything. When my son, Joe, was a little boy, He asked, "Mom, where is God?" We were outdoors at the time.

I said, "Everywhere!" He said,

"Is He sitting on my nose?" He was probably 3 or 4 at the time.

I said, "No - we are in God as fish are in water. Not only that - He is also inside us."

He said, "Huh uh. He won't fit. He's too big and I'm too small."

Fast forward to 34 years later. I am having a similar conversation with his son, Matthew, around the same age as he was when he asked the above questions.

I said, "Matt, do you know that God is inside you?"

"Oh, man," he spluttered, "He's gonna get stuck! I've got bones in there!"

I think all of us, children and grown people, have a hard time visualizing the whereness of God. I like to ponder on that a lot.
He is easy to see in the beauty of nature. We get an idea of His power when we see nature manifesting that power. We can also see Him and His goodness in those who love us or are good to us; and in those whom we love and serve. We read about Him in Scripture and get an idea of how He was when He walked the earth and how He is now. Those of us who believe in the Real Presence cherish Him in the Eucharist though some of us find tedium in the Liturgy.

As in all things we wish to find, first we have to look for Him. If we do not look for something we want, the likelihood is we won't find it. That is why we find Hiin beauty, in love, in the the Word, in the sacred. There's no problem there. The trick is how do we find Him everywhere.

I find that when one is in love, one finds the Beloved absolutely everywhere. Everything at all reminds one of the Beloved. That is what happens with God. When we have fallen in love with Him, he occupies our consciousness non-stop. We see Him in a bird on the wing overhead, in the squirrel running across the power lines, in the fat baby of our friend, the fragile old lady crossing the street. We see His goodness in our favorite food being served in the cafeteria and Mom picking us up at school as a surprise. We see all these things as loveletters from God. We know Him and we recognize His gestures easily.

Okay, so 1) Pray for the grace. 2) Know what He looks like: good, loving, giving, beautiful, kind. 3) Look for Him 4) Fall in love with Him and recognize His loveletters.

The difficult part is finding Him in difficult people and tough circumstances. When there is someone in my life whom I find difficult to love, I tell myself that Jesus is hiding in that person and the game is Hide-and-Seek and I have to find Him hiding in some obscure part of that person. Did I tell you about the homeless man who used to come to my house last summer? He drove me crazy until I remembered what Mother Teresa said, "We have to love Jesus in His most distressing disguise." It was only after I learned to do that and treat the man as if he were Jesus did he stop coming.

The problem is we forget that God is present in everyone and everything that happens to us - even the things we wished were not happening. One of my favorite quotes is, "Nothing is by chance. No detail has been forgotten in the Father's plans, already perfect." As in your Navy/Villanova deal. And even if that had not come through, whatever would have happened was designed by God for your utmost good. The problem is we don't trust Him to do right by us. We want Him to do what we ask Him to as if we were He, God, and He, our creature. When we get it right - that He is Lord - and we the ones he loves, can you imagine how much stress would fall off our shoulders?

So the last 2 steps are: 5) Love Him in His most distressing disguise. 6) Trust Him!

Did I deliver what you were looking for, Alex?