God Will Find You

 

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students 

file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of 

Faith. 

That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind 

both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six 

inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a 

boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion 

then. I know in my mind that it isn't what's on your head but what's 

in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my 

emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for 

strange ...very strange.

Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology 

of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined 

about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We 

lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although 

I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew. 

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final 

exam, he asked in a slightly cynical tone: "Do you think I'll ever 

find God?"

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!" I said very 

emphatically.

"Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were 

pushing."

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called 

out: "Tommy! I don't think you'll ever find him, but I am absolutely 

certain that he will find you!" 

He shrugged a little and left my class and my life. I felt slightly 

disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line:

 "He will find you!" 

At least I thought it was clever.

Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful. 

Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer.

Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he 

walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted, and the 

long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his 

eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I

 believe.

"Tommy, I've thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!" I 

blurted out.

"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It's a matter of 

weeks."

"Can you talk about it, Tom?"

"Sure, what would you like to know?"

"What's it like to be only twenty-four and dying?"

"We'll, it could be worse."

"Like what?"

"Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being 

fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making

 money are the real 'biggies' in life."

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I

 had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try

 to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate 

me.)

"But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, " is 

something you said to me on the last day of class."

(He remembered!)

He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God 

and you said, 'No!' which surprised me. Then you said, 'But he 

will find you.' I thought about that a lot, even though my search for 

God was hardly intense at that time.

(My "clever" line. He thought about that a lot!)

"But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me 

that it was malignant, then I got serious about locating God. And

 when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began 

banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But God 

did not come out. In fact, nothing happened.

"Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and 

with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with 

trying. And then you quit. Well, one day I woke up, and instead of

 throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a 

God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I 

didn't really care . . . about God, about an afterlife, or anything 

like that.

"I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more

 profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered 

something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go 

through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to 

go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you

 loved that you had loved them.' 

"So I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the 

newspaper when I approached him."

"Dad. . ."

"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.

"Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk."

"I mean. .. . It's really important."

The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that."

Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though 

he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him: "The 

newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I 

could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he

 hugged me. And we talked all night, even though he had to go to 

work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to 

see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me.

"It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with

 me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice 

things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping 

secret for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I

 had waited so long. Here I was just beginning to open up to 

all the people I had actually been close to.

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn't 

come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal

 trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through. 'C'mon, I'll 

give you three days . . . three weeks.' Apparently God does things in 

his own way and at his own hour. "But the important thing is that 

he was there. He found me. You were right. He found me even 

after I stopped looking for him"

"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something 

very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, 

at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to 

make him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant 

consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You 

know, the Apostle John said that. He said God is love, and 

anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in

 him.'

"Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class 

you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to

 me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith 

course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the

 same thing it wouldn't be half as effective as if you were to tell 

them."

"Ohhh . . . I was ready for you, but I don't know if I'm ready for 

your class."

"Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call." 

In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that

 he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a 

date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment,

 far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course,

 his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He 

made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more 

beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man 

has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined. Before he 

died, we talked one last time.

"I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.

"I know, Tom."

"Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for

 me?"

"I will, Tom. I'll tell them. I'll do my best."

So, to all of you who have been kind enough to hear this simple 

statement about love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, 

somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven:

"I told them, Tommy . . . as best I could."

~ by John Powell, Professor, Loyola University in Chicago ~

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