Seek and you shall find !
You will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you... (Jeremiah 29: 12-13)
The inhabitants of Athens had altars to all their known gods and, as a precaution, even an altar “To an unknown god”. It is precisely this unknown god that Paul sought to make known to the Athenians:
The God who made the world and everything in it, he, the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelled not in temples made by human hand. (Acts 17:24)
Many believers think that God dwells in their churches while deploring his absence in this world where civility, honor and respect are becoming increasingly rare; a world where people are liars, cunning, scheming, treacherous, always ready to cheat and denigrate each other. As people are blind to God’s omnipresence they think that God is inaccessible, elsewhere. They separate the divine transcendence, which is evident through his eternal power and deity, from his immanence which speaks to the conscience through the divine “breath of life” that animates humans. That is why our first vocation is to seek and find God in order to know both peace and his purposes for us. God invites men,
That they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:27)
It takes humor not to be discouraged to seek God who hides himself from us even though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and exist. In fact, God does not hide because he does not want to be found. On the contrary, he may be found, even if by groping, as in a game of hide and seek, by those who wish communion with him in order to love as Christ loved. (John 13:34) So how do you find, without groping too much, that God who hides beyond time and space? By following in the steps of the one who is the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ. When Philip, one of the disciples asked Jesus to show him the Father, he gets the extraordinary response:
He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? (John 14:9-10)
When Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping, Jesus having the appearance of a gardener, asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15) Here we have another game of “hide and seek” where God shows how he reveals himself deliberately not through the wise, powerful and noble, but through those who are regarded by the world to be foolish, weak, poor and despised. Some seek to be noticed by God and be seen by men by alms and prayers. Instead of seeking God, they hope that God would seek them and manifests himself to them. But as this is not the way that we find God, Jesus says:
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6: 6)
God reveals himself in secret. In secret, he encourages us to come to our senses, and turn to the breath of life - the divine immanence - that hides in our inner man. To seek God in the secret of our heart feels like he becomes smaller to our senses, and that until the veil is lifted and, we will see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:4)
Being created to reflect the image of God, our mission is to illuminate the world with the Gospel of the glory of Christ. To accomplish this mission and live with contentment and piety, we also need some humor. Humor prevails over logic. Humor allows us to take the challenges of daily life not too seriously and say: “Tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”. Humor makes it possible not to be surprised at the fiery ordeal, which comes upon us for our testing, but to rejoice. (1 Peter 4:12-13) In life’s torments and trials we can say with David,
For by You I can run upon a troop; and by my God I can leap over a wall. (Psalm 18:30)
We need a good portion of humor to learn to laugh at ourselves instead of complaining. “Rejoicing constantly”, as the apostle exhorts us (Philippians 4:4), provides assurance that the obstacles that confront us in our lives prevent us in no way to achieve the goal: the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3: 14) When we will have crossed the finish line of this obstacle course, we will understand with fun how much the trials and tribulations have directly and indirectly contributed to the success of the race. When we can laugh at a situation, it means that we are not too involved. We can go beyond our perspective and see the problem from a higher perspective. Humor helps not to overestimate our views and consider the events at higher level.
Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. (Isaï 40:31)
Humor requires objectivity. If Adam and Eve had some humor, they would have understood that the snake does not really want them to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Paradise, but was only trying to challenge them. In the same way he challenged Jesus Christ on the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem when prompted him to throw himself into the void. (Matthew 4: 5-6) But Jesus understood the irony of an invitation that consists to be hurt and to risk dying! If Adam and Eve had reacted like Jesus, they would have discovered that God was only trying to make them blessed and experienced learning: “God is Love”. They would realize then that their mission on earth was to be a living reflection of God, and experience true love themselves. That divine love is not understood by the unregenerate man.
Seeing the Temple in Jerusalem in ruins, some people wept in despair. But a few men of faith where rejoicing because they realized that this destruction announced by prophecy (1 Kings 9: 8-9) was a harbinger of the prophecy promising the rebuilding of the Temple and the glorious coming of the Messiah. (Zechariah 1:16) What at the time is unappealing, humor can see a future full of joy and makes us able to see God's plan in its entirety.
We were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with joyful shouting... The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad. (Psalm 126:1-2)
When we realize that even the darkest moments of history have also generated enormous benefits, enlightened and transformed humanity, then we will understand more easily why we must take to heart the exhortation:
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. (Romans 12: 9-13)
Thus, all the tragic, horrific and conflicting events that have marked the history of humanity will vanish and give way to the Kingdom of Heaven.