Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

questions

Find and Be Found

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“Find, rather than seek.” When I read those four words in Joan Anderson’s memoir A Year by the Sea, they stopped me short.

I was sitting on the back deck of our family cabin at the edge of Lake Superior. I stopped reading mid-chapter, laid the open book face down on the arm of the Adirondack chair, and stared out over the expanse of gray water stretching like a metal sheet to the horizon.

Sitting in that chair, the sound of gentle waves at my feet, I was at the same time drawn to and troubled by Anderson’s words.

The problem was, her instructions seemed to contradict a statement Jesus makes to his disciples in the gospels of Matthew and Luke: “Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you.”

These words Jesus offers about seeking and finding have resonated with me for a long time. I am a seeker and a questioner. Part of this tendency is simply who I am; questioning is stamped on my DNA. But there is also a deeper force propelling these seeking, questioning tendencies in me, which is the fact that, for as long as I can remember, I’ve wrestled with a sense of restlessness, an unrequited yearning deep in my soul.

While I don’t believe God gives us everything we ask for, I have always found comfort in the words Jesus offers about seeking and finding. They’ve been a balm for my restless soul, a promise of sorts – reassurance that I will indeed someday find what I am looking for.

And yet, that day on the back deck, the cold breeze blowing off the lake, I couldn’t get Anderson’s words out of my head. “Find, rather than seek.” The more I pondered her words, the more I realized Anderson’s advice might not be in direct opposition to Jesus’ instructions to us after all.

I’ve spent most of my life relentlessly pursuing goals I’ve set. I accomplish one goal and then immediately fix my mind and heart on the next. I’ve pressed on, ticking item after item, ambition after ambition off an ever-growing list. My life has been built on striving, pushing toward something I couldn’t quite identify.

Turns out, in 48 years of seeking, I am finally beginning to find. And ironically, what I’m finding is that I already have, and have always had, what I’ve been seeking all along.

Everything we need is right here, right now, in this very moment. We find God, and we find who we are, by being present, by opening our eyes, ears, hearts, minds and souls to the here and now.  To find rather than seek means to uncover and to be present to what’s already here and to who we are, and have always been, in Christ.

What seeking ultimately reveals in the end is that we need not seek at all. Once we realize this — once we discover that we’ve already found and been found — we can rest in peace, understanding that what we’ve found is abundantly available to us.

Abundant love. Abundant peace. Abundant beauty. Abundant freedom. Abundant truth. Our finding is limited only by the boundaries we put it around it.

I sat in the Adirondack chair on the back deck for a long while that afternoon. In time, the clouds over the lake began to break. Bands of sunlight streamed down to the water as dragonflies, lacy wings glinting, swooped low over the lawn and arced back up again, snatching smaller insects from the air.

The sound of a hatchet cracking wood, my husband chopping logs for the fire, pierced the quiet. A hummingbird, jeweled ruby throat, visited the feeder, drinking long and deep from each plastic floret, wings whirring.

The breeze stilled. I unzipped my sweatshirt, leaned my head back against the wood, closed my eyes and felt the sun warm on my face.

We have all, each one of us, found.

We have all, each one of us, been found.

::

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Learning to Live the Questions

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The necklace — a choker with a velvet strap and a single brilliant faux sapphire — sat within reach, right at the edge of the open desk. I wanted that necklace; I had to have it, the desire for it so strong it made my stomach clench. So while my third grade teacher bent low over my classmate’s shoulder, I quickly reached behind their backs, slid my fingers into the open desk and then slipped the velvet strand into the front pocket of my corduroys.

Regret rushed in almost instantly as the thrilling high of holding the treasure in my hand crashed into gut-wrenching fear. Stealing, I knew, was a ticket straight to hell. I’d broken one of the Ten Commandments, had committed a mortal sin, and there was only one way out of the hell fires for which I was bound: confession.

…I’m writing about doubt, unbelief, questions and hope for one of my favorite online venues, SheLoves Magazine, today. Join me over there? 

The Best and the Worst

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I was recently asked to write a story in 200 words or less describing the best or the worst thing that happened to me that day. This is what I wrote – in some ways, it was both the best and the worst, all wrapped into one experience. {and yes, it’s less than 200 words – no small feat for me!}

“Mommy, look at these!” he says, holding out the package of unblemished mushrooms for me to admire. Such pristine vegetables are a rarity amid the withered lettuce, brown bananas and squishy cucumbers piled onto the table — food that’s past its prime, expired, rejected by those who have a choice.

“I’ll take those, young man.” Noah turns toward the man with the weathered, flushed face. The cuffs of his jeans are ragged, and he leans heavily on a cane, but his smile is kind. “They’re really fresh,” Noah says, gently placing the small container in the cart.

“Why do the people only get the yucky, wilty food?” Rowan asks as we drive home from the distribution center. “Well,” I pause. “Well, because that’s the food nobody else wants. People who have enough money buy the best vegetables in the store, so the ones we gave out tonight are the leftovers,” I answer.

Rowan is silent for a minute, staring into the darkness. “Do we get to buy the best?” he asks, leaning forward, the seat belt straining across his chest. “Yes, honey,” I answer, glancing at him in the rear view mirror. “We get to buy the best.”

: :

My Compassion blogger assignment this month is to write about what giving Biblically looks like in today’s culture. This story is an interesting answer to that question. On one hand, I am grateful to the Lincoln grocery stores for donating such huge quantities of food to our city’s poor. On the other hand, Rowan’s question is a perceptive and difficult one: why do poor people only get the leftovers that no one else wants? Why don’t we skim off the top of our resources to care for the least of these, instead of from the bottom, after every one of our own myriad needs is met?

Thanks to my seven-year-old, I’m struggling with the answers to those questions myself. In the meantime, though, I want to offer you a small but meaningful way you can positively impact a person who is desperately in need this season. Purchase a gift from a wide range of choices in Compassion’s Holiday Gift Catalog — a meal, medicine, seeds, a goat — and make a very real difference today. 

Thank you!!

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Can I Change God’s Mind?

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“If I could write a sentence like that, I’d be happy; I’d be done,” she declares. I glance down at the hand-out and read it again. It’s a single sentence, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner, about 200 words long, brimming with symbolism, one clause running into the next, a blur of nouns and verbs.

I hate it. I think it’s a terrible sentence. I read it three times, slowly and deliberately, and I still can’t make any sense of it. “How in the world is that a great sentence?” I wonder.

I say nothing. After all, who am I to criticize William Faulkner? And who am I to disagree with the workshop leader, an esteemed writer herself? If Lauren Winner – published novelist, ordained minister, creative writing professor at Duke University – makes a proclamation about writing, who am I to argue?

I remembered this moment when I read the story from the Book of Exodus this week. God is steaming mad – his people have betrayed him yet again. They’ve created a golden calf and are worshipping it as an idol, and God’s had it. “Leave me alone,” he fumes to Moses, “so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them.” (Exodus 32:10, NLT).

Now. If I’d been in Moses’ shoes, I certainly would have let God do his thing. He is the authority, after all – the be-all-and-end-all authority. I’m not about to question God, to challenge his authority. That’s not my place, right? My job is to accept God’s will, no questions asked.

But Moses doesn’t do that. Instead, he counters God with this suggestion:

“Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people.” (Exodus 32:12)

God, upon hearing Moses’ plea, reacts unexpectedly: “The Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.” (Exodus 32:14). Moses convinced God to change his mind.

I’m not saying these verses give us free reign to disobey God or even to challenge his authority. But I do think this story demonstrates the fact that God is open to dialogue. Yes, God is the be-all-and-end-all authority. Yes, God is omniscient and omnipotent. Yes, we are commanded to obey him. But that doesn’t mean we have to like his decisions.

That doesn’t mean we can’t ask him to change his mind.

The lesson for me in this story, as in my experience with Lauren Winner and William Faulkner, is this: I should respect, but not fear authority – not God’s, nor the writing expert’s.

I was not brave like Moses in that writing workshop. I was afraid to speak in the face of authority. I was afraid to question, afraid even to open my mouth. But I suspect that if I’d had the courage to begin a respectful conversation about the Faulkner sentence that day, Lauren Winner would have listened.

And I’m beginning to think that God wants to listen to me, too – even when I tell him that I disagree.

Do you think there is room to question God without crossing the line into disobedience?



Looking for a short but impactful daily devotional? My church, Southwood Lutheran, recently launched a daily e-devotional written by 25 writers, and, no bias of course, I happen to think it’s pretty great. Interested? You can read samples and sign up here. You don’t need to be a member of Southwood or even a resident of Nebraska to sign up! Devotions will delivered to you email in-box Monday-Saturday at 6L30 a.m. CT.

Linking with Jen and the Soli Deo community:


Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

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Striding, Awkwardly

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You sure have a unique stride there,” he says, pulling up beside me on the path, low-to-the ground on his three-wheel, aerodynamic bike. “It’s neat though, real neat.”

“Yeah, it’s not the most efficient,” I agree, pushing a sweaty strand away from my face. “But it still gets me where I need to go.”

He’s right. My running stride is awkward and graceless. I galumph. Like Bullwinkle in a tank top and Nikes. Rather than kicking straight up and back, my feet swing out to either side. It looks a little like I’m swinging an invisible lemon loop round and round my right ankle while I run. I nick my ankles so often with my own sneakers they bleed, sometimes right through my socks.

I’ve tried on occasion to correct my gait, concentrating on keeping my body long and lean, my feet in line with my hips instead of flinging wildly from side to side. But I always give up. I figure I’m not out to break any speed records. I simply want to burn the maximum number of calories in the shortest time possible. And like I told the cyclist on the trail: my stride, flawed and funky as it is, gets me where I need to go.

…I’m over at Her View From Home today…meet over there for the rest of this story?

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