Did You find God ,, or did God Find you?

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phil_at_dayboro

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Would like your opinion of your experience ?
Were you A belive since day One , or perhaps God had been with you all the way but you didn’t realise it,or perhaps you were somehow introduced to the Christian Faith ,
 
cradle Catholic - always attended mass with family
  • had a few moments w/ God during high school retreats
    -never took Christ seriously until my 20s.
 
I don’t know if you only want Catholic answers, but here’s mine.

I was raised up primarily by my maternal grandparents. I remember being a small girl and cuddling up with Granny every night before she went to bed and reading her Bible. She taught me Psalms 23 and the Matthew Christmas story. Those are some of my best memories of her.

Basically, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. I just grew up being told and taught about Him, and it was just a fact of life. I was baptized when I was 11, having realized that b/c I believed, I needed to be obedient and follow through. I was a horribly shy kid, though, so it took my beloved pastor moving to a new church for me to gather the courage to make my desire public.

So I’ve pretty much always believed. Obedience is another matter, as it is for most all of us. Sometimes, it feels like my day is nothing but moving from one “I’m sorry” to another. But I know He’s with me, and will be faithful to complete what He started.

There’s a great song called (I think) “I came to love You early” that really explains my situation well. Sue Smith, 1989

And I believe it’s always God who ‘finds’ us. On our own, we’d just keep stumbling in sin.
It’s nothing I did, my relationship with God is all b/c of Him and what He’s done and doing. Every single day.
 
TC2 said:
I don’t know if you only want Catholic answers, but here’s mine.

I was raised up primarily by my maternal grandparents. I remember being a small girl and cuddling up with Granny every night before she went to bed and reading her Bible. She taught me Psalms 23 and the Matthew Christmas story. Those are some of my best memories of her.

Basically, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. I just grew up being told and taught about Him, and it was just a fact of life. I was baptized when I was 11, having realized that b/c I believed, I needed to be obedient and follow through. I was a horribly shy kid, though, so it took my beloved pastor moving to a new church for me to gather the courage to make my desire public.

So I’ve pretty much always believed. Obedience is another matter, as it is for most all of us. Sometimes, it feels like my day is nothing but moving from one “I’m sorry” to another. But I know He’s with me, and will be faithful to complete what He started.

There’s a great song called (I think) “I came to love You early” that really explains my situation well. Sue Smith, 1989

And I believe it’s always God who ‘finds’ us. On our own, we’d just keep stumbling in sin.
It’s nothing I did, my relationship with God is all b/c of Him and what He’s done and doing. Every single day.
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Thank you for sharing your experience. And, your last line about God always finds us is so true. It reminded me of the poem “The Hound of Heaven”. And, the Lord wants to keep on sanctifying us so that His light is brighter in us.
 
I have never known a time when I wasn’t aware of the presence of God, even as a small, pre-school age, child, so I’d say he found me. His name is forever written on my heart.

On our own, yes, we would keep stumbling into sin, but the stamp of our Creator is on every human heart. We are all looking for Christ, whether we realize it or not.
 
Cradle-Catholic. Didn’t take faith too seriously until my mid-20’s. The Lord was always there, I just finally let him in.
 
I’m a cradle Catholic, there’s never been a time when I haven’t believed in God. In my 30’s, out of anger and frustration, I deliberately turned my back on him. After a long time, when I almost reluctantly turned back again he was still there right behind me. At the time it was a matter of “where can I go Lord”, like Peter. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him but he was the best thing going. Since then it’s grown into so much more.
 
I was not looking for God-- He definitely came after this wandering child!
 
I was raised a mixture of Catholic and Episcopalian- definitely prefer the Catholic faith, but I had some good times at Episcopalian Sunday school.

At the Episcopalian church, we went on a few retreats that were very fun. We went to a camp site or something (though we stayed in buildings), another time we stated in college dorms for a few days… I can’t really remember anything about it besides getting sick that weekend :rolleyes:

Anyways, I had been meaning to get more familiar with my faith for several years after getting confirmed, but only did so a little over a month ago. My campus urged all Catholics to attend the mass for the Immaculate Conception, and I felt obligated to go. If I hadn’t been invited to that, I don’t think I would have ever made an attempt to get closer to my faith, so I like to think God had a hand in it.
 
I spent much of my early life with a tendency to wander, like one of the lost sheep, but God always found me.
And now, even in those short fleeting detached periods when I wonder where he is, he never fails to remind me, often through the most unexpected situations.
 
Thom18 said:
I was raised a mixture of Catholic and Episcopalian- definitely prefer the Catholic faith, but I had some good times at Episcopalian Sunday school.

At the Episcopalian church, we went on a few retreats that were very fun. We went to a camp site or something (though we stayed in buildings), another time we stayed in college dorms for a few days… I can’t really remember anything about it besides getting sick that weekend :rolleyes:

Anyways, I had been meaning to get more familiar with my faith for several years after getting confirmed, but only did so a little over a month ago. My campus urged all Catholics to attend the mass for the Immaculate Conception, and I felt obligated to go. If I hadn’t been invited to that, I don’t think I would have ever made an attempt to get closer to my faith, so I like to think God had a hand in it.
Click to expand...
 
Well, the way I look at it, I was never “lost” to God (nor is anyone else), but I had to go through some things in order to find Him again. 🙂

I went through a 20 year period where God played -at best - a marginal role in my life. Sure, I always felt He was somewhere around, but I doubted that He gave a darn about what happened to me personally. I know I spent a lot of time doing what I thought was praying, but it was really more like demanding that God give me what I wanted, when I wanted it. Needless to say, I was hugely disappointed and quite angry when things didn’t go MY way.

It wasn’t until my mother was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in 2012 that things started to change for me. I felt God’s presence in my life and I felt Him helping me through it. The fact that I even got through losing my mother is a testament of God’s love and mercy. To Him, the 20 years that I was “away” mattered not! He was right there when I needed Him most.

I now look at things completely differently.
 
Some of each.

In the grand scheme of things, I would say He found me, but in smaller areas and times of my life there have been circumstances where my personal perception went both ways.

As a convert I read and prayed my way into the Church, for example. It seemed like I found Him in that respect.

In my moral life, though, it felt like He found me as I had not been living the best life,but something seemed to convince me interiorly of the need for repentance and conversion.
 
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