3 Things Every Seeking Person Needs

27 Jul 3 Things Every Seeking Person Needs

I did not grow up in a religious home, never went to church growing up, and wasn’t really that interested in God – I never thought about him.

But then one day in high school a few of my buddies (the same ones I would smoke pot with occasionally) struck up a conversation about the end times and we started talking about if it was real or not. I had no idea. But something inside of me was pretty sure it was real and that the end times would come. It was just one of those things that you kind of deep down believed but you don’t know why.

One of those buddies of mine mentioned this book called “Revelations” and I wasn’t sure what the heck he was talking about. But then he showed me it was the last book of the Bible and that it talks about the end of the world and what God was going to do at that time. Whoa! I was hooked so I got a copy and started to read it. But, as you can imagine, I couldn’t understand a thing. All this talk about beasts and multiple heads and lakes of fire – I was lost.

But I was curious, and I started to believe that there was a God out there.

All I needed was a few things to help me as a seeking person and thank God I found all of them.

1) A Friend to Help Me Seek

I remember asking different people in high school what they thought about the end times and I couldn’t get any good answers. But one day while on a summer trip, I went to coffee with a friend of my dad’s and I asked him what he thought. I quickly came to find out he was religious, and he gave me the most complete answer I could find. In fact, he left me with more curiosity as he said,

“Beau, you need to go back and read the gospels and find the truth, the truth will set you free. If you know the truth, then you will be just fine in the end.”

Whoa again! I was hooked, so I went and read the four gospels in the next 24hrs and I couldn’t figure out what this truth was! I was more curious and more convinced there was an answer, but I still didn’t get it.

But then I went to college and while God wasn’t the most prevalent thing on my mind (golf and girls were) I was open and curious beneath the surface. It wasn’t long until I met some great guys that I could relate to on campus and they happened to be Christian. I was on the golf team and one of them was captain of the soccer team. We could relate on sports and he took me out to dinner every Tuesday night and answered my questions about God. I finally understood what this truth was – Jesus.

I needed a friend to help me seek and answer my questions. But I had to be willing to reach out and ask for it and be available.

Who is someone you can reach out to for help with your questions this week? If you are a Christian reading this, who is a seeking person around you that you could make yourself more available to?

2) Time in the Gospels

This might seem a little weird at first, but the gospels are the first four books of the New Testament and people who were close to Jesus and saw his life wrote them. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. They tell us the story of Jesus and help us see who he really is, what he really said, and what he really did.

I found that almost everything I knew about Jesus was what I had heard someone tell me or what I saw on TV or the movies. I find today, when I talk with seeking people, that most of what they know about Jesus is from what they have heard others say or do or what they have also seen in the media.

But when you crack the Bible and get into the stories of Jesus, you see him up close and personal and he talks and acts very differently than you might expect.

I suggest that you start in the gospel of John and my personal favorite story is John 2 where Jesus turns water into wine! You can hear my wife and I give a talk here on that story.

Can you make time this week to read Jesus stories for yourself? To truly see whom he is in the Gospels? If you are a Christian trying to help a seeking friend, get them into the gospels and don’t just rely on your words. You can order a guide that I wrote that takes you through the “Seven Signs of Jesus” in John.

3) An Encounter With God

You may have the friend, and you may have looked into the life of Jesus. But one more thing that I needed when I was seeking was an encounter with God himself. I needed to experience him. It is one thing to know all the right things about God, but a totally different thing to actually know him and experience him. I remember when I first experienced God as a seeking person when some of those guys in college prayed for me and asked God to speak to me and show himself to me. Jesus says in John chapter 10 that we are meant to hear his voice. Think about that. People’s voices that we know are people that we are close with. They aren’t just people we know about. Jesus wants us to know him and have a relationship with him. So, don’t be afraid to ask someone to pray for you or to even pray yourself and ask God to reveal himself to you. It is not just about acquiring knowledge about God (although it is about that too) we need to experience him.

Can you ask someone this week to pray for you and ask God to encounter you? If you are a Christian helping a seeking friend can you ask them if you could pray for them to experience God’s presence?

What are other things you found helpful as a seeking person? Please leave a comment.

if you need help learning to talk about Jesus, check out the Beyond Awkward Web Course