Posts Tagged: God seeking us
“Come and Find Me, LORD!”
“I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.”
(Psalm 119:176 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version)
As noted in yesterday’s post, Psalm 119 is filled with love and longing for God’s Word, for God’s commandments, for God’s Law. The psalmist repeatedly expresses great delight in God’s way as expressed in God’s Word.
The ending of the psalm is, thus, somewhat jarring. “Come and find me, LORD. I, your servant, have gone astray.
What! After all this longing, delight, and love, the psalmist has gone astray?!?
Well, yes, that is the way it is, isn’t it? No matter how much we delight in God, we are all prone to go astray. The end is indeed jarring, but it is also real. We are weak, inconstant creatures. I have known a few Christians who had been amazingly consistent—until I got better acquainted with them. Then I discovered that they too were prone to wander.
There is an old hymn that says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Yep, that’s the way we are.
But the psalmist wants to be found. He is still God’s servant, even though he has gone astray like a lost sheep. He has not forgotten God’s commandments. He just can’t figure how on earth to keep them.
On the last day of the year, perhaps we all feel somewhat like the psalmist. “2019 started out with such promise! How can I feel so far from God at the end of it?”
Fear not! As Tolkien said, “Not all who wander are lost.”
And furthermore, the birth and life and death of resurrection of Jesus Christ is an expression of just how far God will go in his seeking of us. Cry out with the psalmist, “Come and find me, LORD!” You don’t have to cry very loud. God has already heard your whimpering and wimpy heart.
“OF QUESTS AND ADVENTURES”
“Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink– even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk– it’s all free!
2 Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food.
3 “Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.
4 See how I used him to display my power among the peoples. I made him a leader among the nations.
5 You also will command nations you do not know, and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey, because I, the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious.”
6 Seek the LORD while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.
7 Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the LORD that he may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.
8 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry.
11 It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
12 You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!
13 Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. These events will bring great honor to the LORD’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.” (Isaiah 55:1-13)
An addiction workbook that I am working through encourages us, as part of step 11, to go on a spiritual quest.
So, to slightly alter the question of a Monte Python character, I am asking myself, “What is my quest?” For what am I searching?
I could say God, but I’m not sure that God is lost. Isn’t God (if there is such a being) everywhere and every-when present?
Yes, I believe that there is a God and that God is always present. In fact, both the Old and New Testaments teach that God seeks us. From the question, “Where are you, man?” in Genesis 3:9, to the invitation of the Spirit and the bride to come to the water of life in Revelation 22:17, God is the seeker and we are the sought.
And yet, we are also told to seek the LORD. In the words of Isaiah 55:6, “Seek the LORD while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.” So, in reality, my quest is for the God who is questing for me.
This quest, this seeking of God, involves two important things I will need to abandon, and two crucial things God will provide. I need to change my wicked ways and abandon my evil thoughts. And the crucial things that God provides are forgiveness and God’s own thoughts.
I knew there must be a catch to this quest business!
Now, changing my ways isn’t easy. But abandoning evil thoughts—man is that hard! And accepting God’s forgiveness would involve taking seriously the evil within me. And what if God’s thoughts aren’t my thoughts? In fact, Isaiah sets point blank that God’s thoughts are not my thoughts.
And yet, this is abandoning of my ways and ways of thinking, and accepting God’s way is the very way to forgiveness. I can hold on to my wicked ways and evil thoughts, or I can be willing to let go of them, and allow God’s forgiveness to have its way with me. Some people act as if forgiveness is easy. I flat out do not agree!
And then there’s the matter of God’s thoughts. Apparently having been willing to seek God, turn from my wicked ways and evil thoughts, and having experienced God’s forgiveness, I now need to concentrate on God’s thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Isaiah 55:10-13 sound wonderfully refreshing. However, seeking God sounds like a lot of work, especially if it involves changing my wicked ways and forsaking my evil thoughts. I have gotten attached to those ways and thoughts! And, of course, they are not really that wicked—maybe.
On second thought, maybe I’ll just roll back over and go back to sleep. To paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, quests are nasty things, that will make you late for dinner. And I’m old now, too old for quests and adventures.
On the other hand, I’m afraid that if I go back to sleep, I might never wake up again. Besides, maybe I’m too old not to go on a quest! And maybe seeking the God who has been chasing me all these years might be worth every ounce of my remaining strength, no matter how young or old I am.
“God’s Requirements” (Micah 6, 8)
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” (NAU Micah 6:8)
So, what is required of me? Micah 6:8 is a verse that haunts me. Micah makes it sound straightforward, if not easy. (It may be straightforward, but it is not easy, as Micah no doubt realized.)
The word for “seeks” is dôrēsh. This is a participle, which suggestions ongoing or continual action, flowing from the character of the one who is seeking. In this case, since it refers to God, it is the One who is seeking.
God seeking us! Now, there is a picture! We sometimes speak of seeking God, and the Bible speaks in that way as well. However, Micah 6:8 speaks of God seeking something from us.
It is not enough that the One occasionally sees me doing what is right and fair, or loving mercy, or walking humbly. The question is this: Does God catch me living in that manner at all times? The question answers itself.
Well, what about today? Will God (“my God”, as Micah says) catch me doing what is right each moment of today? Theoretically, this is possible. However, as they say, the devil is in the details. However, God is also in the details. For some reason, we seem to think that the devil is more involved in the details than God is.
And here is the problem, it seems to me: Other parts of the Bible point out that seeking the LORD God is not so easy, and that, therefore, obedience to what God is seeking from us is not easy. It requires the whole heart (Jeremiah 29:13.) And who of us actually seeks God—or anything, for that matter—with a whole heart? Indeed, there are some Bible verses that suggest that no one really seeks God. (See Psalm 53:2-3 and Romans 3:11 for further details.)
The very fact that God so often commands God’s own people, Israel, to seek God suggests that seeking God does not come naturally.
I am comforted by the teaching of Jesus, who said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). Perhaps the bottom line is this: We can only seek the one who has first sought and saved us. Only so, can we begin to fulfill what God spoke through the prophet Micah.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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- “Delighting in Being Told What to Do?!?” February 23, 2024“Psa. 112:1 Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! 2 His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. 3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures […]
- “Character is the Real Lesson” January 19, 2024I am often confused about what lesson I’m really supposed to be learning. For example, this morning I was trying to knock out several Spanish lessons. My intentions were a lot better than my internet connection. I’ve done three lessons. Or rather, I’ve done two lessons. One of them I did twice because the internet […]
- “The Year of Becoming Un-Planked” January 1, 2024Each year, I try to come up with one word or a short phrase for what I intend to work on in the upcoming year. 2024 is “The Year of Becoming Un-Planked”. What?!! What does that even mean? So glad that you asked! Jesus said to his disciples, “Why do you look at the speck […]
- “Searching for the Noble One” December 26, 2023My wife and I were reading Luke, chapter 2 on Christmas Day. Luke 2 talks about the shepherds being told to look for this very special child—in fact, this King—in a stable. I prefer the word “barn”. I grew up on a farm. I know what a barn is. A stable is entirely too biblical […]
- “That Don’t Impress God Much” December 14, 2023DTEB, “That Don’t Impress God Much” “That Don’t Impress Me Much” (Song by Robert John Lange and Shania Twain) Micah 6:8 (MSG) “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be […]
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