Christian faith is less a matter of finding God and more an experience of being found by God.
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
It’s common for Christians to talk about seeking and finding God as a precursor to their conversation. There is a sense in which this is accurate. But Christian faith is less a matter of finding God and more an experience of being found by God. This happens in conversion, to be sure. But God continues to “find” us when we wander away. God loves to welcome us home.
In the 1970s, Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) launched an evangelism campaign known as “I Found It.” Billboards, flyers, and bumper stickers featured the slogan “I Found It.”
“It,” if my memory serves me well, was something like “new life in Jesus Christ.”
Thousands upon thousands of Christians used the “I Found It” approach to talking with their friends and neighbors about Christ.
But the campaign was controversial, and not only in “secular” or “anti-Christian” circles. Many Christians criticized “I Found It” for its seemingly inadequate theology. The main criticism I heard was that Christians haven’t found “it.” Rather, we’ve found a person, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior. We didn’t find “it.”
I don’t remember hearing concern about the “I found” part of that slogan, though I’m sure some folks raised objections.
Today, I’m not fond of the “it” language, but what worries me about “I Found It” is the assumption that Christianity is mainly a matter of finding something.
Even if CRU had gone with “I Found Him,” that would still make me fret that people would think of being a Christian as centered in our own seeking and finding. And this, I think, puts the action in the wrong place.
The parable we call “The Prodigal Son” makes it abundantly clear that our relationship with God is mostly a matter, not of finding, but of being found. In fact, this is true throughout Luke 15. We are like a lost sheep found by a shepherd. We are like a lost coin found by a woman. And we are like a lost son found by a father. Better than “I Found It” would be “I’ve Been Found” or “God Found Me.”
As I think about Christians I have known, it seems that the ones who are most familiar with the “God Found Me” reality are those whose lives were pretty messed up before they came to faith. They experienced in a profound way the gracious “finding” of God. This is wonderful, to be sure.
My theology affirms “God Found Me,” but the story of my life is not one in which there was one, monumental, extraordinary, life-changing experience of being found by God’s grace.
What I do have, however, are dozens of experiences of being found by God in different seasons of my life. I think of times when I wandered away from the Lord but he drew me back. I remember seasons of the doubt when God graciously revealed his presence to me. I recall moments of desperation in which God granted “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
Comments