How to Find God

I read this morning about Paul's conversion experience.  I'm interested in how Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul's observation of the event.  He said, his entrance wasn't anything like he had planned. Acts 22:11 - And so we entered Damascus, but nothing like the entrance I had planned—I was blind as a bat and my companions had to lead me in by the hand.  For those reading who are searching for truth, for answers for the real God let me offer some insight that parallels what one of the most important men in the history of the world experienced... 


when you find God it won't be on your terms.  


A great deal of our problem is that we want to control how this all looks, feels, smells, sounds like.  The reality is God will allow life to reduce you to to nothing before you can see He's everything.  A problem with religion is that it can easily be misused, causing us to think, "if I just change a few things and clean a few areas up then I'll probably find God." Some people spend their whole lives cleaning up, like I'm doing this morning in my family room after my boy's slumber party, thinking that if one more blanket gets folded then God will have room to move in.  Kierkegaard said, "God creates everything out of nothing - and everything that God will use he first reduces to nothing."  Sooner or later, like Paul, you'll be helpless, blind as a bat.  That's when you'll see.