DIFFERENT ROUTES
By Rev. Frank Majka, S.J.
associate
director, University Ministry
Those of us who feel close to God are usually there because something has pushed or pulled us.
 Life’s sorrows can push us toward God. Some of us find life so challenging and our efforts to improve things so fruitless, that we have nowhere else to go but to God. We go seeking strength, direction, hope, comfort, and sometimes just the energy to get up and face another day. When life pushes us toward God that way, we pray that God will do for us what we can’t do for ourselves, and we ask for the strength to accept His help.
Others seek God because we find life good and rewarding. We feel blessed by God and grateful for our families, our friends and our health. We recognize that the beauty and goodness of our lives are gifts, and that God has loved us and enriched us in ways far beyond what we might have expected. We want to tell God of our love and give thanks.
Finally, some of us are not so much pushed to God as pulled toward God by the attractiveness of His person, His message and His values. Some of us are inspired by Jesus’ words and actions. We can’t resist admiring Jesus as we see Him in the gospels, spending time with outcasts and the poor, with people of social importance and people of no social standing, with women, children and the sick. We marvel at Jesus’ willingness to give His life for others, and can hardly believe the graciousness with which He forgave the disciples who abandoned Him. We find such a God draws us like a magnet draws iron, and we pray that we can get to know God better so that we can become more like God
Desperate for God, grateful to God, or attracted to God (or a combination of all three), people come near to the One who comforts, strengthens, blesses, loves and fascinates us. What in your life has brought you to God? What keeps you there now?
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