Skip to main content

Seeking God

             But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

     

            A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

            You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. (Psalm  63:1)

 

            While walking this morning, I prayed for three friends facing big physical challenges and their wives. I prayed about my work, my writing, and my garden. There are times when I pray through Jesus’ example prayer (mistakenly called “The Lord’s Prayer,”) but today, my prayer is about needs, desires, and God’s blessings; it was not about God.

            And we are supposed to pray about our needs and desires and those of others. We’re to cast our cares on Him and pray for one another that we may be healed. But I remember when I was jogging, the first half of my route was spent fussing and trying to get past all the garbage in my mind. I spent the second half talking to God about things. It seemed as if, no matter how hard I tried, it took about 30 minutes to quiet the noise. And if I had tried to divide my jogging time into two half-hour sessions, I am sure I would have spent the best part of each dealing with garbage.

            With discipline, I’m sure that the garbage part could be reduced. The tougher part is increasing the seeking part. The problem here is that there is seeking God and there is seeking God. Where is our focus? Are we effectively saying, “I’m seeking! I’m seeking! See me seeking! Aren’t I doing a great job of seeking?” or are we saying, “God, where are You? Please, I want You”?

            It's easy to decide, “I’m a horrible Christian!” because we can’t seem to get past the “I’m seeking!” part, but that just increases the focus on ourselves. And it just doesn’t seem like I can take an hour or an hour and a half out of my day, even though I can’t do some of what I think I should be doing. I’m too busy with unimportant things. Other people are too busy with important things. We might like the idea of living the way they did in the medieval monasteries, with the day broken up so that we spend at least a little time with God every hour or two, but I suspect we’d find our minds wandering even then.

            Some people talk about quiet times as if they are training drills at a military base. And there is some benefit to building strict routines because we gain strength and learn good habits, but these too quickly become “See me seeking” times.

            As I think about this, something Dallas Willard and C. S. Lewis have discussed comes to mind. Both wrote about seeking the spectacular as being immature or taking us off course. So, as I seek God, am I disappointed or even resentful because I don’t have some “experience”? If I feel cheated if I don’t end my time with God saying, “Wow,” isn’t that putting the focus on myself again?

            Father, guide me to You. Teach me how to seek You and to make seeking You about You and not me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more