You go to the store and expect to pay a price for the goods you buy. You consider your purchases and get those things that you value more than the money in your pocket. Are there other things for which you pay a price? Do you have an urge to belong? This is common to all people. Do you realize that belonging comes at a price? Any group that you would join requires accommodation to their values. So the same concept of benefit for cost is present in your associations as well as your purchases. Are you getting real community and acceptance in the places you belong?

Are you familiar with the story of Jacob, who camped at a random place in his travels because he ran out of daylight? He didn’t think of it as a special place so he was quite surprised when he encountered me during the night. He woke up astonished and said, you were here all along and I never knew it. Do you hold the doctrine of omnipresence? This would have been too sophisticated for Jacob, but it is common today. Yet you can hold sophisticated doctrines as abstract concepts. Has the reality of my presence ever surprised you in a place where you least expected it?

Have you ever heard of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? This is obviously a bad idea. Have you known people who rejected spirituality as a concept because they were victims of spiritual abuse or religious oppression? Unfortunately these things are real, and are not limited to one denomination or faith tradition. But spirituality is an innate characteristic of the human condition, and you don’t escape from it by walking out of a church. The impulse for transcendence still lives in every human heart. I should know, because I put it there.

Are you curious? What are you curious about? People with the character trait of curiosity apply it to whatever they encounter. Do you think some things are off limits? For instance, do you think that spiritual matters are already settled, or that you must have certain credentials to pursue spiritual matters? Both of these ideas are wrong. In fact, I delight in your spiritual curiosity. I want you to pursue it. Are you prepared to pursue it anywhere it leads? Trust me to guide you. If you want to know then you can assume that I want you to know. Seek and you shall find.