My father was a rather silent and level-headed man, but the one thing that would always light him up was talking about God. He would talk passionately about Him and speak of everything that God had helped him though. He was very into it. You see, I grew up in a very Adventist community. My father was a pastor. We lived on an Adventist campus, and I was in Adventist schools ever since nursery. I was pretty much convinced that I knew God. I mean…He was all I ever heard and talked about. I had a very factual understanding of who God was. I knew that He loved me and that He gave His One and Only Son to die so that I may live. I knew a lot and I had the pathfinder honors and badges to prove it. However, I always felt this guilt because I could never really understand why I could not feel God the way my father did.
It was not until I left home that I soon realized why I never felt like my father. You see, I went to church, but not because I wanted to, but because my family went. I learned the Bible, not because I was searching for something, but because it was what everyone did. I realized that in my whole life I never searched for God because I was comfortable with passively knowing Him. It was never that God was not working in my life. It was that I had never really asked Him to. It was not until I asked that I finally realized why my father was the way he was.
Matthew 7:7-8 says, “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.” I learned this verse as a child but comprehended its significance as an adult. It was not until I sought that He stopped being the God of my father, but my God.
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