Ask
Dr. Bill
How
Can I Find God?
By Dr. Bill Gaultiere
Question:
I have been seeking a relationship with God for quite
a long time, but to no avail. I've even started Christian
counseling to help me find faith. I'm desperate. I feel
certain that if I don't believe in Jesus as my Savior
that I am doomed. But when I try to put my faith in
Jesus and his promises it just doesn't stick. The promises
of God don't seem to apply to me. I am full of fear
and doubt and feel as though I am blind to the understanding
that Christians have. What else can I do to find God?
Answer:
I think that you're problem isn't finding God. You found
God the moment you hoped and started looking for Him.
He's been walking right beside you each step you've
taken in your search for Him. Each promise in the Bible
that you've read showed you something about God. Each
prayer you offered connected with God. Every word and
every tear you've shared with your counselor has moved
your Heavenly Counselor. He hears your cry for faith.
He feels your pain. He appreciates your efforts to find
Him. He's extending his love, joy, and peace to you
every moment of every day on your faith journey.
Therein
lies your problem - being found! Letting God inside
your heart seems to be the issue for you. You're trying
so hard to find God, perhaps too hard. Let yourself
be found. Tell God about your fears and doubts. Talk
to him about your self-condemnation. Cry out to Him
about each promise that doesn't seem to apply to you.
And then listen. Open your heart to Him. Hear God talking
to you as you read the Bible and pray. See God smile
at you in the sunshine and hear him sing over you in
the songs of the birds. Sense God listening and caring
for you through your counselor. God is all around you,
loving you and blessing you. You're just having difficulty
taking it in.
Apparently,
you have some deep wounds in your heart which have left
you crippled with fear, doubt, and shame. Think of it
this way. Faith is like a spiritual hand by which we
grasp God and his love for us. Your hand has been badly
wounded and each time you reach out for God, grasp with
your hand, and try to hold onto his love, all you feel
is excruciating pain and so you let go. To hold onto
the God you've already found you need to tend to this
wound.
I
commend you for seeing a Christian counselor. If you've
found a "good enough" counselor (no counselor is perfect!)
and you keep working at getting help then you will be
found by God's love. Time and again I have observed
in my own work with clients in psychotherapy that by
the end of treatment they have a new understanding of
who God is and how much he loves them. Why is this?
Why do some people need to heal from their hurts and
work through their struggles in counseling in order
to grasp God's love for them?
I
believe that God finds people who are receiving care
in a helping relationship because faith is based largely
on our capacity to trust. We develop our trust, or lack
of trust, in the first months and years of life. To
the extent that a child feels safe, loved, and treasured
by mother, or another mothering figure, then trust develops.
But children who are abused, abandoned, neglected, or
grow up with an alcoholic or mentally ill parent become
damaged in their abilities to trust. The world feels
unsafe. They're afraid to need or to feel because it
seems no one will be there to care for them. Deep inside
they feel badly about themselves because either they
were treated badly or they weren't given patient attention,
affection, and loving care. These hurts need healing.
The defense mechanisms, character traits, and beliefs
that developed around these hurts need changing. They
need the experience of a new relationship in which they
learn to trust and to receive care.
Therefore,
I encourage you to talk to God, your counselor, and,
perhaps, another "safe friend" about your difficulties
trusting and how your trust may have been damaged. As
the wound in your spiritual hand heals you will gain
the strength to grasp. As you let your Christian counselor
or safe friend care for you and take this care inside
you will better understand God's love for you. We all
need a "God with skin on," that's why God sanctioned
the church to be "the body of Christ" and charged Christians
to go out as "ambassadors for God" in order to offer
his appeal of love to all who are hurting or in need
(2 Corinthians 5:20).
My
prayer for you is that today you will hear the words
of the risen Lord Jesus recorded in Revelation 3;20:
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone
hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and
eat with him, and he with me." (For additional help
on finding God read my answer article, How Can I Find
God's Love?)
God
loves you and so do we at ChristianSoulCare!
