Photo of the author taken by Dwight Van Middlesworth, Sr., on Lake Invermere, B.C.
“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
– Bono, U2
What are you looking for?
As we navigate our way through what appears to be, oftentimes unchartered territory, it can feel like our clarity is the equivalent of trying to identify the mixtures through a clear glass of Coca-Cola Classic combined with 2% milk. Even with our proverbial compass in front of us we still don’t know which way is due North.
The feelings that can accompany us during these searching moments aren’t necessarily the ones you want to re-live, as some kind of encore emotional performance. Along the way, as we have within us the aches of our heart for the yearnings of life, what we are really looking for is someone to just listen to us. A trusted companion to hear both our pain and our aspirations. We need hope so we go looking for it, in a personified way.
This searching is actually a hunt for the void places of our soul, where often all that stands between now and then – the fulfillment – is simply time. Each of us is on this search as we want to keep growing. We innately want to grow our ourselves, our character, our knowledge, our abilities, alright you get the point. For to not be searching would be to be settled and we as the human race have a very difficult time being settled, with pretty much anything in life. We are restless creatures, evermore continually and continuously on a restless and relentless journey. As ironic as it may sound, this is where we prefer to be – in the action.
Even so, sometimes in life we get stuck and don’t know what to do or where our next step should be. My pastor has once said, “It is easier for God to move a ship when it’s moving out at sea than when it’s anchored at bay.” I feel I can relate to this analogy and have discovered the truism in this saying: in order to find direction in one area of life, the starting point is to get moving, in any direction – even if it’s backwards. The point is to be in motion and out of that, with our sails up, so to speak, God can direct us and lead us for where we are to go.
Through this process of determining the next step for myself, circumstances have somehow aligned themselves in such a way that I’ll hear some lyric from a song on the radio that pops out at me while driving, or a verse will stand out to me when I’m reading the Bible, or a friend will say something that stands above everything else I’ve heard during the course of the day. As a result, l will have gained the clue to what I was looking for that helps determine what the next step is or it may even be the final piece of the puzzle that is needed to find what I was looking for.
Dwight Van Middlesworth 