I lost God. Somewhere in the midst of the midterm hustle I ran far ahead of Him and left Him somewhere. I need to find God, I thought. I figured once I finished my presentation for Dr. Moses I’d have time to find Him. Of course then I remembered I needed to take an online Communications test before 1:00 pm that I absolutely couldn’t skip out on. Maybe I can take time to find Him afterward. Shortly after my quiz, I ran into my boss reminding me about the Spiritual Committee meeting later that day. I thought, God will surely be in the same place I left Him. I’ll just look there, after my meeting of course. Before I knew it, the night sky rose and my eyelids fell. “Maybe when I have more energy to search for God I will be more effective. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll look for Him in the morning,” I justified faintly as I dozed off.
As the morning came, so did all its responsibilities. Tuesdays are terrible; I certainly didn’t have patience and motivation to play hide and seek. Next came Wednesday, and everyone knows Wednesdays are the most frantic homework days of the week. I wouldn’t dare sacrifice a Wednesday to do any search and rescue to a lost friend. God would just have to wait till Thursday morning for me to find Him. After all, isn’t He supposed to be patient?
Thursday morning arrived too soon. The snooze button and my index finger became buds. The time came when I shot out of bed realizing I had only five minutes to drive to class. I shouted as I jumped out the door, “I promise God; I will take time today to find You—just not right now!”
One more assignment to go, then I could breathe again. I picked up the book to read my assigned chapter: “Bible Teaching and Study Methods.” The more I read, the more broken I became.
The first line read, “Search for her as for hid treasures” (Prov. 2:4). Farther along it continued, “The study of the Bible demands our most diligent effort and preserving thought. As the miner digs for the golden treasure in the earth, so earnestly, persistently, must we seek for the treasure of God’s word.” The text went on to explain the significance of maintaining a love for the Bible and a yearning for Christ. How do I expect to teach students to read their Bibles if I am not taking the time to do so myself? How do I fall in love with God if I don’t take the time to date Him?
I lost God. I didn’t look for Him on Monday. Tuesday I saw significance in finding something else. Wednesday I set Him on my Thursday priority list. By Thursday, I was too exhausted from the three days before— didn’t have energy to find Him. So He found me. He found me through my homework.
God grabs the snare Satan lays before us and uses it for our good. By crawling into my main source of distraction, God reminded me what is most important. Jesus is the best education, and without Him I can do nothing.
Do you think anything you do today is more important than searching for God?
Author Mollie Cummings is a student intern with the Mid-America Union Communication Department.
