Seeking
I remember growing up and playing hide and seek. It’s a game that is still played often by children everywhere. It is a simple game where there is one person seeking to find those who are hiding. Those hiding are not lost; they are just waiting for the seeker to find them. The object is to keep seeking until you find all that is hidden. There is a thrill in seeking but an even better feeling in finding. Like many adults, I seek many things that I misplaced, but the greatest seeking I do is seeking God each day. Unlike the children’s game, God is not hiding from us. He has not moved, but it is we who are walking in the wrong direction moving further away from Him.
Seeking God must be an intentional act. In I Chronicles 22:11, the Israelites were preparing to build the sanctuary to hold the ark of the covenant and the holy vessels of God. Before they could start, their instructions were to set their heart and their soul to seek the Lord. This teaches us if we are to do anything of value for the Lord, we must set our hearts on Him and seek Him. We must seek His wisdom and follow the path that He has laid out for us. Our seeking must be intentional if we want to be sure we are being directed by Him. It is making a conscious choice, not just coasting through our Christian life.
I Chronicles 22:19 “Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God; arise, therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the LORD God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to be built to the name of the LORD.”
Our seeking must be continual. In I Chronicles 16:11, we are told to seek His face continually. This means fixing or focusing our attention and affection on God. When there are people you love, they are never out of your thoughts or out of your heart. This should be even more so when it comes to our relationship with God.
I Chronicles 16:11 “Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.”
While it is true that God is always present, and if we are Christians, his spirit dwells within us, we are still to seek to be more aware of Him and more in tune with His desires for us. It is the same as a family. They live in the same house, but so much of the time, they are disconnected, with each doing their own thing. Sometimes they are not even aware the other person is in the house. II Chronicles 7:14 gives us conditions for connecting with God. First, we must be His people. We must truly be saved by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ and the finished work on the cross. Then the writer tells us we must humble ourselves. Humility must be our desire, knowing that our salvation is not of ourselves but it is of Him. Pride is a sin that God hates, and there is no place for it in the life of a Christian. The next thing we are to do is to pray. Sounds simple, but this praying is not a little prayer where you say a few words and then go about your business as usual. It is a deliberate calling out to God in repentance and desire to know Him. Then we are to seek His face. When you want someone’s attention, you want to be face-to-face with them. It’s an intimate approach to God. We are getting His attention. Last, but probably the most important and should probably come first, is to repent. To turn away from the sinful ways of life.
II Chronicles 7:14 “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 29:23 “A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.”
While there are many more verses about seeking God, they all give the same message. We are to be intentional, continual, and persistent in following the pattern of turning from sin and turning to Him.
