God shows up wherever He wants. He is the rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him, and seekers know there is still more to be found.
Paul was one of those seekers and he gave us a clear indication that his search was never over – his longing heart never fully satisfied.
“That I may know Him…” he wrote. Knowing Christ was his driving passion, the motivation for which he was willing to give up everything.
“That I may know Him…” When did Paul write this? While he was sitting in Damascus waiting, blinded by the revelation of Jesus Christ Himself?
Or was it when he was in the desert for fourteen years, hearing directly from God, “consulting no man”?
Maybe it was right before he was caught up into the third heaven, when he didn’t know if he was in or out of the body. Or before he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible things, “things that man is not permitted to tell.”
No, it was after all that. After the missionary journeys, after the shipwrecks, after the beatings and imprisonments, after so many miracles, after the founding of many churches. While he was in prison in a Roman jail cell, Paul penned this great passion of his soul: “That I may know Him…”
If finding was the end of seeking, then Paul would have never written this. And if Paul was still seeking near the end of his life, what does his search say to us?
John Fischer The Catch 
I was reading your message this morning when I came upon your mention of Paul’s reference of being caught up into Paradise [Maybe it was right before he was caught up into the third heaven, when he didn’t know if he was in or out of the body. Or before he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible things, “things that man is not permitted to tell.”],.I was reminded of a book I recently read, “Heaven is for real”, about a boy who casually began to make mention of heavenly things he saw when he was caught up to heaven during a surgery at age 3; beginning several months afterwards.
My wife and I pulled into a grocery store to make an emergency stop and happened upon a devotional book rack. My wife found an interesting book by John Maxwell and commented how God might have used a random stop to find that book. Meanwhile, I found a few of my own when I picked up the above book and she exclaimed that her son had been reading that book. So we walked out with three books. At the register, the cashier commented about the author of her book, as well.
I don’t know if she’s read her book, but my first book had a deep effect upon me. I read the entire book “Heaven is for real” during a two leg flight, mostly with tears in my eyes. I probably wouldn’t have purchased it if it wasn’t a little boy that purportedly came out with the things he did. It was a number of years before his father, a Wesleyan Methodist minister in a small town church, decided to share his sons stories and eventually was encouraged to put the story in print.
If you read the book, you can take it with a grain of salt, that anyone could say their child ‘said’ that they saw those things, but then why would a minister of Jesus Christ be deceitful, which would make his son (now a teen) party to a pack of lies? I evaluated what was described and I could come up with no theological objections to anything that boy stated. I saw that over two million copies of the book have sold, and some might site financial gain as a motive, but as I read your article, I thought, “there are two million folks who are seeking to know Him”.
And as I had mentioned initially, the phrase where Paul said he had heard things that “man” is not permitted to tell. I thought, “Maybe, just maybe, Jesus let a child be caught up into Paradise and come back to us because a child doesn’t know that “man is not permitted to tell”, and that He might be smiling deliciously at the glimpse of heaven passed along to us by a child. Maybe He loves us that much, and maybe He wants us to understand what we already knew but had a hard time connecting the dots in trying to envision our future in God’s heavenly family and home.
Maybe so!
This was exactly what I needed to hear today.. I pondered the very question to God, Why do I feel that I am always Searching, it was a question infrustration…and this answered it! Life is a constant Longing untill that day of completion! Thank you Heidi
That it’s about the journey, not the destination? 🙂
“Hey, Dad: we there yet?!”
Take time to smell the roses – spiritually AND physically.
Wow! i just read this 5 times. It was like an arrow right into my heart. Thank you for sharing this one. Paul’s search says to me to move on! Move on in my life seeking the Lord with anyone, anywhere,any time or place until I am face to face with Jesus.
Yes, the journey, building the relationship. The more we know God, the more we know Jesus and the greater the power we have to resist sin. We strive to be sinless and when we begin to believe we have arrived, we have only deceived ourselves. God withholds much of himself allowing a lifetime of learning to know Him. The Word of God, as old as it is, is timeless; always teaching, always having a new lesson for you. Love and embrace our Savior Jesus Christ.