Years later, however, I discovered that that experience of whale watching had taught me what it means to wait for God.

This vacation was a big, big adventure, and eager whale-watchers that we were, we were hardly off the ferry before we were knocking on the door of the research station to enquire about tickets for next day’s whale-watching trip.

That’s when we learned the bad news. The tickets cost $70 each! And that was 1988! That was a lot of money for two Madonna House staff workers who had barely scraped together enough money to go camping.

I quailed. "I didn’t know it would cost so much," I said. "Maybe we shouldn’t go after all."

AJ looked at me. "This is why we’re here," she said. "This is what we came for." Without another word she plunked our money on the counter.

Right there the parallel between seeking whales and seeking God began. I had known, of course, that they weren’t going to let us on that boat without paying, but I hadn’t expected it to cost so much.

I knew it would cost something to seek God too, yet that price has also come as a shock.

And the bottom line in seeking God is precisely what AJ said.

So we paid our $140, went to our campground, gathered twigs to make a fire, and heated our canned beans.

That night, as I tried to sleep in my inadequate sleeping bag, I was the coldest I’d ever remembered being in my whole life.

Then, first thing in the morning, we encountered something the Bay of Fundy is known for—fog. It was white and soft and wet and cold, and it was so thick that, when we emerged from our tents, we couldn’t even see the nearby picnic table.

Soon we were wet as well as cold—with fog condensing in our hair and rolling down our cheeks.

The green twigs we’d gathered the night before were wet, too, and refused to burn. No fire meant no warmth and no coffee!

Tired and grungy, cold, wet, and crabby, I at least, had lost all interest in whale-watching. But we had paid for our tickets, and we had to show up by 9:30 to find out if local wisdom decreed that today the fog would lift and the boat would go.

There you have it, the second and all-important element of a life of seeking God: you have to show up.

So simple. There’s really nothing interesting to say about it. And frequently there’s nothing interesting about doing it either. You just have to do it; that’s all.

You don’t show up for the boat, you don’t go out to where the whales are. You don’t show up to pray; you don’t go out into God’s dimension of reality.

And so often when it’s time to show up, I at least, just "don’t feel like it."

This is where having paid a high price helps. Crabby as we were, we had no intention of missing that boat.

We showed up—as did 12 others. We all stood around miserably until the people in charge announced that yes, the boat would go today. Then they loaded us up on a very small sail boat.

The great advantage of a sail boat was that we could motor out to the feeding grounds, but when we came close they would cut the motors, and we would sail in silence. In silence you can get much closer to the whales.

You have to have a boat to take you out to where the whales live, of course. Likewise, you have to have some kind of prayer to take you into relationship with God. You have to do and say something. There are many kinds of boats and many styles of prayer.

Ultimately, they all get you out to the general area where you want to be—out into "the deep."

Then, at a certain point, it is silence that will bring you closest—both to the whales and to God.

The engines eventually started, and we began to slide away from shore. All we could see was a six-foot stretch of dark gray moving water topped by light gray fog.

We continued to be cold and wet and enclosed in grayness. Only two things changed. First, the movement of the boat created a wind which blew icy wet fog over us. The second thing was worse. I got seasick.

So I was cold, wet, and sick, and there was nothing of interest to see. This went on and on and on; there was no escape. The only thing I could do was endure.

Endurance. It is not a fashionable quality, but it is closely related to the essential gift of the Spirit—fortitude. Much of the process of seeking God involves a great deal of endurance.

To wait for the Lord, you have to go out into the realms in which he lives, the realms of charity, of selflessness, the realms of God’s perspective on life.

This is a long journey and it involves moving from one inward place to another. It is a journey which includes a long period comparable to that stretch on the boat: boring, painful, and seemingly endless. During this time endurance is everything.

Fortunately, this stage does not last forever. And neither did this trip to the feeding grounds.

Numb with misery, we hadn’t noticed, but we were getting somewhere. The day, too, was changing. The fog was lifting, and gradually we could see further and further out.

Suddenly someone yelled, "Two o’clock!" Instantly we were on our feet staring slightly to the right of the boat’s prow. There it was—a spout!

At that distance it looked no bigger than a drinking fountain, but it wasn’t a drinking fountain. It was a whale! The boat sped off in pursuit.

Then someone else called, "Nine o’clock!" As one we whirled to the left. A back! And it spouted too!

Things got even more exciting from then on. The crew raised the sails and cut the motors.

In the silence we heard the whoosh of the spouts. Then we saw a mother and calf.

From the first cry of "two o’clock" all my discomfort was forgotten—made completely and permanently irrelevant. I was nothing but eyes and ears, all tuned to the sight and sound of the majestic creatures out there.

It’s like that with God. With even a distant, faint, tiny glimpse of him, all the suffering we have undergone in seeking him is forgotten. In fact, the gift is so infinitely greater than the cost that the cost becomes almost laughable.

And then it happened. Within fifty feet of our modest sailboat, a whale emerged. The head arched out of the water, the back following seemingly forever. Up, up, up it rose. Every head craned higher and higher as that back continued to rise, overshadowing the boat, topping the mast, looming above us.

As if time had slowed, I noticed details: the barnacles on its back, the blow hole. Finally, I saw the tail come out of the water and follow the back high, high up.

This whale was twice as big as the boat and very close. It would fall on us, smash us to bits! I was sure we were all going to die.

But even then, as a sort of subtext to my terror, I felt an exultant awareness: even if I die, it will have been worth it!

But we didn’t die. Amazingly, the whale simply dove, disappearing into the depths of the water. We were left looking at each other, stunned.

No picture can convey the awesomeness of a whale. No picture can convey his complete otherness. In a picture you are not there; you do not see yourself with the whale. You do not feel the complete difference between you.

The parallel with God is obvious. As Job said when God spoke to him from the whirlwind, I had heard of you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you (Job 42:5).

An encounter with God, far more than an encounter with a whale, is terrifying. A whale after all, is only a large mammal. God is the creator of the whale and the water, the creator of everything. God is totally other.

To encounter him is to know the utter difference between him and us, as well as to know the relationship. To encounter him is to know that we have no control here. This is on his terms. It is awesome. It threatens life as we’ve known it. It is absolutely, totally worth it.

Our boat operators must have had some sense of theatre (or felt a bit threatened themselves), because after the whale dove, they announced that it was time to turn back. Unnoticed in our concentration on the whales, the sun had come out. There was a pleasant breeze, and we sailed lightly across the water, the sun warm on our backs.

There was a mood of shared fulfillment on the boat, each one’s happiness increasing everyone else’s. Somehow our experience of seeing the second largest species on earth had created and reinforced bonds among us smaller mammals.

Even so, of course, every shared experience of God creates the deepest possible bond uniting human beings.

There are instructive parallels between watching whales and seeking God. But there is one great difference. If those whales could have spoken, they would have said, "Go away! Don’t come out here. Leave us alone!"

God, on the other hand, consistently says, "Seek my face!" And he has promised, Seek and you will find (Mt 7:7, Lk 11:9).

To seek the Lord is the greatest of adventures. It costs. It means showing up, and much of the time, it means waiting.

This waiting is a very active thing. It is related to and includes those other instructions in the Psalms: Listen! Watch! Seek! The call to "wait" is a call to a daily practice and a lifelong attitude.

Yes, seeking God requires much. But even from the first distant sign of his presence, none of the cost matters. In every encounter there comes the revelation of who he is and who we are, bringing peace and fulfillment within and among us.

As AJ said, "This is why we came. This is what we’re here for."