Posts Tagged: barriers to being in God’s presence

“SEEKING AND RESTING”

On March 14, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. A psalm of David. LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.

  2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

  3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD– now and always.” (NLT  Psalm 131:1-3, italics mine)

“All night long I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek for God.” (NLT Isaiah 26:9a, italics mine)

Our puppy is fairly contented a good deal of the time.  Much of the time, she is satisfied with lying on my lap or my wife’s lap for longish periods of time.  Such long contented lies help us to relax as well, I think.  (Besides, she keeps our laps warm!)

However, there are other times when she will not be denied.

Take the other day, for example.  I had her blocked off in the kitchen, while I was lying on the living room floor, doing some stretches.  These exercises help with back and hip problems.  Our puppy paced back and forth in front of the gates that I placed between the kitchen and the living room.

Our little girl is afraid of the gates.  She has succeeded in knocking them down on at least one occasion, and it frightened her pretty badly.  So she tends to stay well back from them.

This time, however, while I was doing my stretches, I noticed her getting closer and closer to the gates.  She stood on her hind legs, whining, trying to get into the living room. Finally, she went to the edge of the door jamb, where there was a small, barely puppy-sized gap.  I just had time to notice the courage and determination in her eyes, before she was in, and I was smothered with kisses on my bald head.

I think that God values those times when we simply rest in him, like a small, weaned child who leans against his or her mother’s breast, but not for food.  After all, as the psalmist says, he is like a weaned child.  Instead of needing anything, the psalmist is leaning against God just for warmth and affection—for God’s presence.  Like any good mother, God loves those times.

But God also values those times when we seek him in spite of all the barriers—real and imaginary—that keep us from God.  He loves that courageous, determined look that precedes us bursting into his presence.

So, rest and seek!  Seek and rest!  Either way, God loves it.  And God loves you!

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