Articles - Bulletin
You Will Seek Me and Find Me
Generally speaking you and I only search for things that we cannot find right? I mean that just makes sense. If I know where something is at, why would I need to search for it? I occasionally misplace some things like my wallet, keys, phone, etc. I look in all the typical places I’ve put them before first and then if they’re not found it’s an all out search including places I would never imagine me putting them. More times than I’d like to admit I wind up find them in the most odd of places.
What’s interesting to me about our relationship with God is that He is constantly telling, teaching, and encouraging us to diligently seek Him. I’m not just talking about the time in my life when I hadn’t obeyed the gospel and had yet to give my life to Him. Even after I “found Christ”, as some like to word it, He still says I need to diligently seek Him. Using the logic that we mentioned just a moment ago this presents an interesting paradox.
This may seem odd at first given the arguments that God is omnipresent. Aren’t we always in His presence? Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 28 “and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” As Christians are we always in Jesus’s presence? I like the way Jeremiah worded it in Jeremiah 29:13 as he speaks to those in exile. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” The Lord told Asa in 2 Chronicles 15:2 “The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.”
While it is true that God is omnipresent and His desire is to always be with us, the two previous passages point out that there are times when His presence is not with us. Jeremiah says we will seek and find him but that it is contingent upon us seeking him with all of our heart. The Lord told Asa that He is with us WHILE we are with him and if we forsake Him he’ll forsake us.” Jesus made it clear to the woman at the well in John 4 that God is constantly seeking us and wants to be with us. In return we must be diligently seeking him. Not just once, but everyday.
In some ways I think it likens to a child constantly wanting your attention. We’ve all been there with our children. Sometimes the amount and longevity of attention our children desire seems to exceed our patience and attention and yet they don’t give up. Just when you think the show is over and they leave the room, they quickly return with something new to show you and tell you ever detail about. They want our undivided attention. While we as parents find ourselves reaching our limit and then shooing them off to their rooms to play, God is asking for us to seek His attention. The awesome part about our Father is that He never grows tired of listening and giving us the attention when we seek it.
You and I can diligently seek God every day this week by looking at His awesome creation all around us. We can seek Him by spending time in His word that tells us so much about Him and who He’s asked us to be. We can seek Him by spending more time talking to Him in prayer and telling Him all about it. We can seek Him by spending more time with His people.
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:1-4)
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