Why Settle For Anything Less?

Why Settle For Anything Less?

“So Jacob was left alone, and a Man (God) wrestled with Him till daybreak ... Then the Man said, ‘Let Me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let You go unless You bless me.’” Genesis 32:24, 26 NIV

I remember Walker Percy because his first novel won the National Book Award in the same year I began teaching English. Through most of his career, this highly acclaimed writer wrestled with scientific humanism, in a spiritual quest for something to hang on to. But his writing always reflected doubt that there was anything there worth hanging on to.

Then years later, in an article about Percy’s death in a literary magazine, I was surprised to read this quote from him: “This life is much too much trouble ... to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what to make of it and have to answer, ‘scientific humanism.’ That won’t do ... One should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight that is God. In fact, I demand it! I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone would settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed hold of God and wouldn’t let go until God identified Himself and blessed him.”

Wow! What a surprise to discover that Walker Percy’s life-long search eventually led him to the Bible, where he saw himself in Jacob, who said he would not let God go until God blessed him. Percy finally rejected scientific humanism for the blessing of a relationship with the God of the Bible.

Do you know someone who’s searching for God? He’s found in the Bible, where His Son, Jesus Christ, says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father (God) except through Me” (Jn. 14:6). Scientific humanism, existentialism and every other “ism” will disappoint. Only an eternal relationship with the God of the Bible will satisfy. Why would anyone settle for anything less than Jacob or Percy did?

By Larry Ondrejack