From Jo Throp, Senior Steward
Dear Friends
What if faith begins not with us finding God, but with the discovery that God has already found us?
We search, pray, read Scripture, attend worship and engage in a variety of activities and hope that somehow, we might draw a little closer to him. There is truth in all these things. Yet the Christian story begins somewhere else. It begins with God.
Before we seek God, God is already seeking us. Before we notice God, God is already present. Before we take a step towards him, he has already taken a step towards us. This is one of the central insights of the Wesleyan tradition. John Wesley spoke of God’s prevenient grace, the grace that “comes before”. It is God’s loving action already at work in our lives before we are fully aware of it. I wonder if this changes how we think about faith.
Many of us spend a great deal of energy trying to find God or wondering what he wants us to do. We assume the challenge is ours: to look harder, define the path more clearly, pray better, or believe more strongly. Yet perhaps the first question is not, How do I find God? Perhaps the first question is, How is God already finding me, and where is he leading?
I often speak about attention because attention shapes our experience of the world. What we notice affects what we value. What we value shapes how we live and what we do.
Yet Christian attention is not simply an exercise in mindfulness, self-awareness, or time management. Christian attention begins with grace. Grace awakens attention.
We do not discover God because we have finally learned to pay attention well enough. Rather, we begin to pay attention because God is already reaching towards us.
The Gospels are filled with examples of this reality. Jesus encounters people where they already are: at fishing boats, on dusty roads, in tax booths, around dinner tables, and beside wells. Again and again, we see God entering ordinary moments and transforming them into places of encounter.
The woman at the well is perhaps one of the most beautiful examples. Jesus meets her in the middle of an ordinary day. The conversation is honest, personal, and deeply revealing. Yet what strikes me most is that the encounter is initiated by Jesus. He comes looking for her, and she responds.
In a story shaped by water, we are reminded that grace is often like water itself. It flows towards us before we understand its source. Grace holds. Grace sustains. Grace helps us see what God has always seen.
While dissonance reduces life to what is visible and measurable, grace reveals who we are in the sight of God. Grace tells a larger story, one in which we are not defined by our failures, our achievements, or the labels others place upon us. We are
known and loved by God.
Grace forms us within that story, and invites us to participate in God’s forming of others too. This is what we mean by resonance: participating with God in the truth he already sees. As we attend to God’s resonance and lean into the flow of grace, we begin to discover our own unique experience of God’s grace, lived out alongside others in Christian community.
The story of the woman at the well has led me to reflect on a simple question, what if truth is not being found out, but being found? The fear of being being found out is something we are all no doubt familiar with. We worry that if others saw the whole truth about us, our failures, disappointments, insecurities, and struggles, we might be rejected.
Yet in Christ we discover something different. We encounter the God who knows us completely and still comes towards us in love. This is the nature of grace. Grace is not merely forgiveness offered after we have finally found God. Grace is God’s loving presence already at work before we realise he is there.
Perhaps that is why some of the most significant moments of faith are moments of recognition rather than discovery. We suddenly realise that God was present in a conversation, a challenge, an unexpected kindness, a request or question we could not shake, or a longing we could not fully explain.
Looking back, we recognise that God was already there. The invitation of faith, then, is not first about striving.
It is about noticing.
Noticing God’s presence. Noticing God’s activity. Noticing God’s love. Noticing the ways in which grace is already at work in the ordinary circumstances of our lives and then responding to his invitation.
As we move through the coming weeks, perhaps we might create a little space for that kind of noticing.
Instead of beginning with the question, What should I do? perhaps we start with a different one, how is God meeting me here and does he call for a response? For the good news of the Gospel is not that we have finally managed to find God.
The good news is that, through grace, we discover that God has been reaching towards us all along, helping us to see what he has always seen, and inviting us to participate in the life and love he is already bringing into being.
Best wishes
Jo