What If I Find One?
Posted on January 1, 2006
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Children often set off on make believe adventures and hunting expeditions; traveling to far away lands in search of exotic and elusive game. The pleasure is in the pursuit. But what if on one of those wild African lion hunts they were actually to find a lion? Thinking of that possibility with the innocence that only a child can muster, she might turn to a parent and say, “Daddy, what should I do if I find one?” What’s more what would they do if, to their astonishment, they learned that they were not only the hunters, but in turn being hunted by the prey they were seeking? Not realizing that sometimes the pursuer is actually the one being pursued.
C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and renowned professor at Oxford and Cambridge, likens this type of scenario to the spiritual pursuits of many people in relation to God. Lewis writes, “There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God!’) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?”
Is your pursuit of God a sincere one full of anticipation of actually finding, as Francis Schaeffer put it, “the God who is there?” Or is it simply a noble goal with no hope or real desire to actually find One? The question of real significance becomes, what should I do if I find one? For that matter, how would it feel if you came to realize that you were not the pursuer but the one being pursued?
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