Found by God

“Where could I go to get away from your Spirit? Where could I run from you?” — from Psalm 139

At Oxford, Jack made some wonderful friends. One of them was a professor named J. R. R. Tolkien, who loved the old stories of the north just as Jack did. Tolkien was a Christian. So were several of Jack’s other clever friends. Jack noticed it, and it bothered him.

Jack did not believe in God, and he did not want to. But the books he loved best kept turning out to be written by Christians. Bit by bit, every reason he had for not believing began to fall down. Later he said it felt as though God was hunting him, and he was running out of places to hide.

In 1929 Jack’s father became very ill. Jack went home to Belfast and sat with him for weeks. He went back to Oxford when his father seemed a little better, but soon a telegram called him home. He hurried back, but he was too late. His father had died. Jack was full of sorrow, and sorry for the unkind way he had often treated him.

Then one night, alone in his room at Magdalen, Jack stopped running. He knelt down and prayed, and he admitted that God was God. He did not feel happy. He called himself “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” That means he was the gloomiest, most unwilling person ever to come to God!

Jack remembered this happening in 1929. People who have studied his letters carefully think it was more likely the summer of 1930. Either way, it was the beginning. Jack started going to church, even though he did not enjoy it, because he believed it was right. But he did not yet believe in Jesus.

Jack tried very hard to get away from God. But God never stopped looking for him. Nobody can run so far that God cannot find them. God loves you, too, and he is never far away.

Dear God, thank you that you never stop looking for us. Thank you that I can never run too far from your love. Amen.