Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

​TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

God, who made the world and everything in it…is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being.

This is how the apostle Paul addressed an audiencein ancient Greece, where people paid homage to many different gods, yet had the impression that there was still one that MUST exist whom they hadnot yet met. 

This Bible passage from Acts has always resonated with me because before I became a Chrisitan, I also felt convicted that there was a God I did not know.  

I grew up in a secular home in Sacramento,California.  Spiritually, I was a blank slate, in everysense of the word.  As a teenager, publicly, I mocked or dismissed the idea of the Christian God; but privately, I knew that something must exist. Privately, I sometimes prayed at night, calling out and asking what, or who, was out there.  The emptiness of not knowing bothered me, so I sought answers from neo-pagan and eastern beliefs.  I remember really wanting to believe some of the books I read, but then sadly walking away with the distant butinescapable awareness that they just weren’t true. 

Other times, I would drift away from the question of God, and seek to be happy with just living life.  This worked.  But I found that, although I could fill my plate with plans, activities, and academics, once I’d consumed everything, it would be empty and blank all over again.  There was still no enduring peace. 

When I went away to college, I found an even broader array of items to fill my plate.  I also found something I did not expect.  Through no effort of my own, I came into regular contact with a Christian student ministry.  I lived in the same house with some of them, and I liked them.  They seemed unusually kind and genuine.  However, I didn’t knowhow to respond to people who seemed relatable one minute, but the next were making crashing religious statements and gathering for singalongs.  So I kept my distance.

One problem was that I had some deep prejudices regarding organized religion, and Christianity in particular, although I never recognized them as such.

Back in ancient Greece, Paul continued in Acts that when he was done addressing the Athenians, 

“…some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.” 

At this point, I was still inclined to mock, and I also had a hard time reconciling the Christian students’ apparent scholarship, which I admired, with their religion, which I could not take seriously.  I still giggled when they were the butt of others’ jokes, but secretly, I admired their kindness.

Then I moved to a different residence, and out of regularcontact with Christians.  Almost immediately, I developed a persistent stomach ailment.  I’d like to give it a name, but neither I, nor any of the array of doctors, acupuncturists, or counselors I saw could call it. Some of them prescribed things with worrying side effects.  Overall, it hung on for months, making it difficult and stressful to eat, study, andwalk to campus.  After a while, it began affecting my psychology, and I began to despair.   

Then, in an act of resigned desperation, I agreed to pray through a psalm from the Bible with a friend.  I had been shaking from taking too much of a particular medicine.  And as we prayed, I stopped shaking.  I would like to say that I was reacting to deep spiritual truth, but at that time, I really just wanted more of whatever would make me feel better. 

And so I went to church with my friend.  It was a very small house church with ties to my former housemates’ student ministry. Contrary to what I had assumed, this Christian church was the most welcoming, accepting place I had ever been. Communally fulfilling people’s highest calling,worshipping the one thing we’re designed to worship,created a unity and purpose that is unique to Christian fellowship. In this environment I gradually observed John 13:34-35 played out, where Jesus commanded His disciples, saying: 

“…love one another; as I have loved you…By this all will know that you are my disciples....” 

Church, I can attest to the effect Christians’ choosing to welcome, forgive, and bear with one another has on someone who’s never seen this before. 

And so observing His followers made me to want to meetthe God of the Bible.   Through unadorned teaching, and small group discussions, I heard about a God that sounded too good to be true: endlessly good, powerful, and interested in us. I truly hoped that this time, this religion would be real.

So I began to read the Bible from its beginning.  Within days, after reading about Noah’s flood in Genesis 6, I hit a breaking point.  Verses 5-6 read:

“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”

I distinctly saw myself in this verse and was broadsided by the conviction that, like the people who died in the flood, I was actively and continually grieving God just with theevil in my thoughts and words alone. I wanted very much to be near to and approved by this God who seemed too good to be true.  However, at the same time I had the stark epiphany that it was not my natural state to obey God’s foremost command, tolove Him, as in to reverence and obey Him, everymoment with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that I certainly did not love my neighbor as myself, as in having ONLY prideless, considerate, unselfish, unenvying thoughts toward other peopleall the time.  And so for the first time I believed that people are not good, or even OK, even though the Bible says that God originally created us as being “very good”.

Here is where words fail me, but this is what I usually say: My head spun as I grappled with a sudden and extreme perspective shift. Night was suddenly day and day night, as everything I thought was right was wrong, and everything I’d thought was wrong was right. It took a few days to get my sea legs, but then I never looked back.  

I now understand what happened to me to have been the quickening of the Holy Spirit, which is the aspect of God that He puts in people SO THAT we can choose to follow Him, AND BECAUSE we choose to follow Him. And no, no one understands how this works.  Except for God. 

God knows me and He and describes my experience in His Bible when He says to “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

So this time, I did not walk away from my reading trying to suppress quiet doubts.  Instead, there was only exhilaration and joy. I had found my Unknown God behind the one place I had refused to look.

Convicted that the Bible is actually true, and that it is God’s own word, I eagerly read on.  At the suggestion of my new church, I began to read from the New Testament as well as from the Old. As my biblical literacy grew, and as I continued to learn what the Bible says about Jesus, I began to understand that He was eternal God appearing as a man.

I had heard the phrase, “Jesus died for your sins”, before, but, decontextualized, this was religious jargon to me, and so I had tuned it out.  Now that I was reading the Old Testament, however, I began to understand the essential backstory for the New Testament appearance of Jesus.  Leviticus chapters 1-7 describe the animal sacrifice system God commanded Israel to practice, in which He allows a ram, lamb, goat, bull, or dove to be ceremonially killed to take the place of people’s guilt from wrongdoing.  Every year on Passover Day, Jewish households were to substitute a young, male, unblemished lamb in their place for their wrongs. Likewise, Jesus, a young man who was perfectlymorally unblemished, switched places with us, allowing Himself to be sacrificed on Passover Day in our place, for our wrongs so that we, in turn, can wear His perfect innocence, and enjoy His manner of close relationship with God.  

At first, it sounded far-fetched, and I know that this is the point at which many tune out and dismiss the gospel as mythology, but something my pastor said kept calling to me.  That through Jesus, God choseto free us from our disobedient nature to be the people He originally made us to be.  One of my favorite Bible verses states, “But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom andcontinues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” Freedom through an almighty God? Freedom through a law? Like my God, my freedom was found in the last place I had thought to look.

Like many, I had always held the very small and self-oriented definition of “freedom” as being able to do whatever I wanted.  But here was a surpassingly profound and beautiful translation: “Freedom” is to be unblinded and unbound from my default hostility toward God and to have what my soul truly craves—nearness to Him and peace with Him. 

God knows that we can’t produce this kind of freedom for ourselves.  The Bible says that He loves the world so much that He sacrificed Himself, in the form of his Son, Jesus, to buy it for us.  Without God’s intervention, I would have remained separate from Him, both on earth, and then ever after.  

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

God, who made the world and everything in it…is not far from each one of us. 

I love the God who gave me my freedom.  I still talk to Him at night, and He is patient, and He listens.  He talks to me, too, through His Bible.  He wrote this so that we can have the peace and security ofunderstanding who He is, and of knowing what His intentions for us are.  If you are like I was, searching for meaning but not sure what that looks like, I would ask you to please try reading the Bible. God calls this Book God-breathed, His living and active surgical instrument, a mirror of the human soul, and food.  In it, the voice of wisdom promises, “I love those who love me, And those who seek me diligently will find me.” 

You can access a free Bible online at Bible Gateway or Bible.com. Many local churches like ours, or libraries, will have free paper copies. I would recommend reading a modern-language version likethe NASB, ESV, NIV, or the NEW King James(NKJV). Start with the first 11 chapters of Genesis,then jump to Matthew, and begin reading through the New Testament while continuing in the Old. Also, with an open mind, ask God to show you who He is. 

And church, one more thing, one of the Christian students that had influenced me later confessed that although the group had been fasting and praying for people in our house, she didn’t pray as much for me because she couldn’t picture someone like me ever becoming a Christian. It’s been wisely said at Grace Life before that we should pray for and minister to “unlikely” people.  I can attest to this, because we can truly never know who is wrestling with spiritual emptiness under the surface.