To Find Something, you must look for it

​There was a time in my life when I spent a lot of time wondering, where is God? And at that same time, during this wondering, I was spending no time actually looking for God.

You do not find what you are not looking for. I have discovered that truth.

I recently listened to TobyMac's acceptance speech after winning an award for the contemporary Christian album of the year. The name of the album is, Life After Death. It was written to honor his 21 year old son Truitt, who TobyMac and his wife Amanda lost to an accidental drug overdose a few years ago.

As TobyMac shared his words, you could see the grief on his face. You could feel the weariness of a man trying to understand how a young person, a young son, could be lost so soon.

But in his painful words, TobyMac acknowledged, there are some questions we just don't get to ask.

Like, where are you God?

Oh, we can ask that question. For sure. Like I said, I got good at asking that question. But the reality is, it's a question we already know the answer to if we've paid any attention to God at all. If we've listened to God's promise.

Because God's promise is, we will find him where we seek him.

In his acceptance speech, TobyMac said, "He didn't promise us we wouldn't face loss. He promised us that He would never leave us or forsake us. I promise you this, if you take the time to look in the deepest, darkest valleys in this world, He is there. He is true to his word. I have experience in that. He is the only reason. He is the only reason that there is life after death."

I have experience in this, too. So do you. Not every dark valley looks like a lost loved one. Sometimes it looks like a broken relationship or a lost job or a health challenge or a broken promise. There are a lot of valleys in this world that look like a God disappeared.

But God never disappears. We simply land in places in life where it's harder to see Him.

A valley is a valley because it is surrounded by mountains. The mountain of struggle that landed us in the valley. And the mountain we'll climb to get to the other side of the struggle.

The other side where we will see the sun rise. Where we will feel the light and the warmth. Where we will say, there you are God.

And God will say, I've been here all along. I understand the mountains sometimes make me hard to see. But if you climb, if you look, you will always find me.

Just as I've promised.