No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. — John 6:44
I know this quote to be true, and I have to say at times it makes me sad. I know God started drawing me to him very early in life. It took a couple of decades to get me to the point of surrender, to going from blind to sighted, lame to walking, but in retrospect I can see his urging throughout my childhood.
Why does it make me sad? I don’t want to be singled out. I want everyone to experience God’s love. If people could actually see and hear and experience God for themselves, they would jump into his arms.
So why doesn’t he put that longing into everyone?
I don’t know. But I do know he told us to go forth and and reveal what we know to the world. If we do that, our story might waken that suppressed longing inside someone else and be a springboard that makes their soul leap to God.
I’m not sure where my longing started, but when I was 8-9 years old I was given a “Young Reader’s Bible” by my parents’ church. It was big and illustrated and I read it quite a bit. Around the same time I remember sitting in a pool of sunlight on the lawn, looking at grass, flowers, and insects with an intense joy and wonder that convinced me God was real.
All these decades later I remember the depth of that little moment. A lot has gone on since then, to put it mildly, yet I remember that single, intense burst of joy in the midst of the horrific turmoil of my childhood.
God took that tiny moment to start tugging at me, to offer me hope in a situation that could easily have killed me.
No matter how frightening your past is, try to look back and see the seeds of hope. I know I felt completely abandoned throughout my childhood, but God did reassure me. There is no way I could have found that moment of wonder without him.
