Trying To Find The Tape

This is one of the great human challenges in life.

Trying to find the beginning where packing or Scotch tape begins.

Ever have a roll of tape without its convenient dispenser?

It’s like this…

Hide and seek. Peekaboo.

And all we want to do is tape something.

Yet all we find ourselves doing is grasping for the starting point.

Grasping for it.

Groping.

Did you know that groping shows up in Scripture?

And it’s not a “little grope,” either.

It’s a significant grope.

“So that they should seek (Elohim) the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”

Acts 17:27-28

Yep.

Groping. It doesn’t just happen. It’s an education.

We don’t know what to look/grope for.

“We love Him before He first loved us.”

1 John 4:19

We don’t even know we are lost, at any given point in our lives.

Most of us, in one way or another, just thrash and bump into dark space after dark space.

We believe various lies.

Sometimes, we think that something that appears to be so close to us, within reach, is the answer to our lives…

And then, there are times when we only are going backwards…

Yeah.

We are doing great, aren’t we?

Why am I employing all these cat gifs?

Well, yes, I admit it. I am a sucker for these things. They are just funny. And my ridiculous nature does like to be amused. I’m a cat lady.

But these gifs, displaying animals in these hysterical situations, appropriately enough, display our HUMAN behavior.

And let’s be real. We all have had some kind of bucket on our heads.

Getting back to our “lost-ness.”

We believe that “this is the way,” and “that is the way.”

We try all kinds of vices, sins, “solutions,” people, and things to find our way.

Nothing works.

Probably, because we are GOING the wrong way.

Again, this is us, in the feline fella here…

Way, way, WAY off course!

Because, drumroll, please…

“….I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

Yep, take the buckets and the lampshades off our heads. Nothing that we “try” works.

Cue The Spirit: “Unless the spirit draws…”

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

John 6:44

Attention-getting. The Most High is a Master at it.

Sooner or later, in our lives, we have our attention… “got” by Yahshua.

Think about it.

How many of us have been living our lives for years, for even decades, without seriously giving The Savior His due? We can blow Him off. Maybe, we convince ourselves that our denominational upbringing is “enough” to keep us in good stead.

Maybe we think He is irrelevant. After all, that was ancient times, right?

Maybe, we don’t even know that we are supposed to think about Him.

I think He gets a charge responding to this one.

Because it is SO dramatic. Least likely.

“Suddenly.”

“Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.”

Acts 2:2

“For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes.”

Matthew 24:27

It does not need to be as grandiose as a Hollywood production.

But the “Suddenly”/attention-getting thing cannot be denied.

Something shifted. We cannot “un-know” now.

The Spirit drew us. There is no returning to our “pre-drawn-by-The-Spirit” state.

So, do we think we have finally discovered the metaphorical beginning of the tape, as taunted in this meme?

Well, yes and no.

Infuriating. I know. Just stay with me here.

For, next on deck…

We see through things darkly.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

1 Corinthians 13:12

Even with our eye-opening, Spirit-drawn, and illuminating experiences, lighting up our need for The Most High, through Yahshua, our Savior, we still can fumble around in the dark a bit.

Some of this fumbling, is our sins, our poor choices.

And some of it is just that we do not know all there is to know.

How’s THAT for an infuriating answer?

It infuriates me. Recovering, insecure, control freak that I am.

But I am NOT in control. And I am certainly NOT Omnipotent.

He is.

That’s what He wants us to accept, however gradually, suddenly, or anywhere in between.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15:5

Apart from Him, we can do nothing.

We are that helpless, that dependent.

Without Him, I couldn’t type any of these words. Without Him, you couldn’t read any of them. Without Him, we could not see, hear, know, do, breathe, or be.

That’s a comprehensive list, isn’t it?

Humbling, but exactly.

We are, therefore, encouraged to keep pursuing Him.

Grope for Him.

Keep groping FOR Him…

 

“So that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”

Acts 17:27-28

It’s a Relationship, extending, even far beyond “lifestyle.”

It is intimate. It is real. It is relevant. It is the beginning of the true tape we have been spending our entire being trying to find.

Have you “found your being” in Him?

Let’s pray.

ABBA-

I come to You, in The Name of Your Son, My Savior, Yahshua.

You know how I have been trying to find so much in my life.

You see how I have repeatedly failed.

I feel like I am struggling, in the dark, in vain.

Forgive me; help me.

You know my every thought and my every wound.

You see how all of them have led me to keep searching for answers.

You are My Answer.

Long before I ever even knew that there was a Scripture, encouraging me to grope for You.

By faith, now, I do.

I come to You, with a groping spirit, heart, mind, and will.

You know I cannot do anything without You.

Help me to gain a better understanding of that.

Help me; I need Your Help in every area of my life.

Don’t leave me to myself.

Thank You for keeping me throughout my life.

I fully give it to You, now, by faith.

Be glorified with, in, and through it.

Thank You.

I receive You; I grope after You,

In Yahshua’s Name,

Amen.

Copyright © 2026 by Sheryle Cruse