I recently had a conversation with a lapsed Catholic who left the Church decades ago. In that time, he has dabbled in several Protestant sects, finding none of them to his ultimate satisfaction.  He told me that what they all amount to is a song and a sermon.  He is a senior citizens with severe health problems. When I suggested that he return to the Church, he demurred, saying that he will find God on his own.

My first question was, “Where will you look?” His response was that if God is there, he can be found.  True enough, but this really applies to those who have never known God and have become sin seekers of the divine.  It does not apply to those who rejected God, once having known him.  For the lapsed Catholic, God is not lost; the lapsed one is, and he needs to find his way back to God.  Since such a person is presumedly in a state of serious sin, it is not likely that God will grant him special favors (although He could.)  Moreover, two thousand years of Christianity have shown that not only is God not lost, but that He has revealed Himself to mankind.  If He has revealed Himself, He is not lost and needs to be found.  The sensible thing is to find out where He is now and go there with great haste.

Another question was, “What kind of God are you looking for?” In my experience, it seems that those who are “looking for God” always seem to find one that agrees with their values and moral code.  Modern man has made hobby of remaking God to suit himself.  The problem that is that it is not the true God regardless of how much you are satisfied with your god.  These homemade remodels usually demand nothing, applaud everything and, to be right in fashion, are not judgmental about you.  If we do not have a relationship with the true God, any substitute is a false god and just as effective as no God . Our invented god is fool’s gold, alluring, but worthless.

The last question is , “How will you know if you have found God, and how will you evaluate Him?”  If you consider God to be of significant importance in your life, it is imperative that you find or return to the right one. It must be the God who can do for you what needs to be done to bring you to eternal life, the goal of every human being.  What criteria will you use to make the judgment?  Since you have, at one time, rejected the true God, your homemade god can do nothing for you because you are a human and have no control over eternity.  God has revealed Himself to us through the Sacred Scriptures, and Tradition (ex. the Church Fathers), and the Church.  He established and only these sources are the means to connect with the real God.  No other effort will work as well. While most religions have elements of truth, only the three sources mentioned above have all the truth in one place.

One who says he intends to find God is acknowledging he has lost God (who, by nature, can never be a a lost being).  Such people are often not amenable to rational arguments because reason will lead to reality and reality is out of favor with them at this time. But God is not limited by our naiveté and stupidity. His grace is all-powerful. Praying and sacrificing for the lost among our family and friends is the best way to help.  God is a master at bringing lost sheep home.