| “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” |
| —Acts 17:27 |
Do you ever wonder why certain things happen? Most of us do wonder. We wonder why this tragedy or this triumph happened. We look for motive. We look for a logical reason. We try to figure out what promoted a particular action. Sometimes, we think we understand. Other times, we remain completely baffled. Why did this happen? How could this take place? What prompted this terrible thing, or this glorious thing, to come about?
The Apostle Paul offered the following explanation on the occasion of his speaking to some of the wisest men in the then known world. Paul had gone to Athens to the “Meeting of Wisdom” known as the Areopagus. This was a society of the smartest thinkers of the day, gathering here at the very center of all culture and knowledge. Notice what Scripture shares with us, as Paul speaks to these esteemed intellectuals, as recorded in Acts 17:22-31:
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
As you can see, this was a bold and powerful speech to make to men who considered themselves the very smartest of the smart, the wisest of the wise. They were men who worshipped, with certain fear and trembling, a wide range of gods. One only has to study Greek mythology to get a flavor of the complex belief system that imprisoned these men’s thinking and their lives. The Apostle Paul comes with this logical explanation for all of the unknown and unknowable things that these very smart men feared, as recorded in Acts 17:27:
“God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”
Today, God still promotes His divine Presence in the lives of countless millions of people around the world. He longs for all men, women, boys, and girls to seek Him. Yes, before the foundation of the earth, He chose people to belong to Himself. And, He sends His Holy Spirit to irresistibly draw these ones to the center of His mercy, grace, and love. One of the ways He draws them is through the events that happen around them and in their own lives.
As we begin a new day, let’s listen carefully with our inner ears—the ears of our heart—for the nudging of the Holy Spirit. He will always lead us along the right path. When things happen in our lives that we do not understand, let’s be aware that God may possibly be using these events to draw us even closer to Himself.
Based on a blog originally posted on Monday, October 23, 2017
