Month: February 2024

Wisdom

Is It Possible to Seek God Diligently and Not Find Him?

The Kedge Anchor
Photo by Jean van der Meulen on Pexels.com

Happy Friday!! We made it to the end of the week. It’s almost the weekend!!! First, I just want to say this blog post today is inspired by the Bible Cafe on Instagram hosted by Pastor Dave Therrien @therrien6034, New Hope Christian Church. He has been taking us through Proverbs 1 this week talking about wisdom. Whilst Pastor Dave has been talking about wisdom in verses 32 and 33 (I encourage you to listen to the past week, they are five short videos). Pastor Dave goes on to say we need to be intentional about doing what God says to “be at ease from the dread of evil.” It’s a promise if we are intentional about doing what God says? (which made me think, “am I setting out each day to intentionally do what God says?”, that’s a discussion for another day)

After reading verses 32 and 33, verse 28 caught my eye;

28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.
29 Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord,
30 They would have none of my counsel
And despised my every rebuke.
31 Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way,
And be filled to the full with their own fancies.
32 For the turning away of the simple will slay them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them;
33 But whoever listens to me will dwell safely,
And will be secure, without fear of evil.” (NKJV).

(seriously, listen today’s video and what Pastor Dave says the Bible says about complacency)

So this reminded me of last week’s post and the one before that about seeking God wholeheartedly, diligently. The Bible says we will find Him when we seek Him with all our heart (Jeremiah 29:13). But, verse 28 – “… They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. That just smacked me between the eyes. Proverbs 9:10 came to mind – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” We need to have fear, a reverent fear of God, THAT is the beginning of wisdom. We must CHOOSE to fear God. My fear of God isn’t one that makes me run from Him. It’s not a fear if I mess up He’s gonna be mad me and punish me. He’ll correct me and get me back on track with love, grace and mercy. My fear is fear one that is in awe of Him. He is in control, He died for me, for us, God rose Jesus from the dead for me, for us, so that we could have eternity with Him. God is sovereign, there is no other like Him, He has NO equal! Choosing to fear the Lord, the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 2:4-6

4 “If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
5 Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;”

We can be diligent and intentional in our search but with out fear of the Lord, we ain’t gonna find Him. We ain’t gonna find wisdom and understanding without a reverent fear of the Lord. It comes down to choosing. Choosing to fear the Lord. Choosing to be intentional about seeking Him and doing what He says. There are only good things that come from choosing to fear the Lord. Diligent, intentional, wholeheartedly, seek, choose, we will gain wisdom and understanding.

Uncategorized

Seeking God Wholeheartedly

The Kedge Anchor
Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com

In the last post, Seek and You Will Find, I questioned myself. Do I seek God wholeheartedly? Am I just phoning it in? Am I desperately and urgently seeking him, like I was looking for my four misplaced (not lost) objects?

What is wholeheartedly? What does seeking God wholeheartedly look like? Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (The Shema) 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength…” We are to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength. I am gonna guess that I need to seek God the same way. I needed to know more so I set out to find more.

First we need the right attitude, mindset, posture. We need to seek diligently, intentionally, continually and humbly. Let’s break that down a little more. Intentionally, 1 Chronicles 22:19 – “Now set your mind and heart to seek the LORD your God. …” Sometimes I don’t have a plan when I sit down to read my Bible, usually because I finished a devotional or a study and don’t have another lined up. So I kinda just aimlessly wander through my Bible, maybe old sermon notes, or the biggest trap; scrolling the internet for a devotional. I gotta change that. I need to have something lined up, be more intentional about how I am seeking God.

The ESV in Proverbs 8:17 says – “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. That sounds like a promise. : )

1 Chronicles 16:11 ” Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually! (ESV) Some translations say “seek his face continually.” And most importantly, we need to have a humble and repentant heart.

2 Chronicles 7:14 – “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. I know one way to humble myself and that is to cast my cares on him because he cares for me, for us. 1 Peter 5:5-7 5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Which brings me to surrendering. Why do we hold on to our worries and anxieties? I know it’s hard to hand over, we want control as humans. For me, casting and surrendering need to happen. As I cast I need to surrender.

So the verses mentioned were more of a posture of the heart, the mind. What about physically? We all need quiet to study and pray, Matthew 6:6 – “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Maybe you do better with a little background music, worship songs, etc. that’s cool. For me it helps to have a quiet space ready to, meditate, ponder in my heart and journal and to pray. We need prayer to ask for forgiveness and align ourselves with God. Sometimes I need to change things up a bit and weather permitting I like to sit outside, which can be a bit distracting, birds, noises… squirrels. It takes a lot of focus for me outside but sometimes God uses my surroundings to speak to me.

Be patient in your pursuit. You will find Him. And in your search allow yourself to rest and absorb what you have learned. Meditate on the scriptural treasures you find. Just as it took me a few days to recover my misplaced items, God will reveal Himself and what He wants you to know in His time.

So seeking God wholeheartedly means having the right attitude, mindset, and posture towards Him. It means being intentional, diligent, continual, and humble in our pursuit of Him. We need to set our minds and hearts to seek Him, have a plan in place and a quiet spot for our time with Him, and approach Him with repentance and humility .

When we seek God with our whole hearts, He promises that we will find Him and that when we diligently seek Him, He will reveal Himself to us. And as we continually seek His presence and His face, He will hear us, forgive us. Let’s trust that as we seek Him wholeheartedly, we will find Him and experience His love, grace, and presence in our lives.

Obedience

Seek and You Shall Find

The Kedge Anchor

“If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:13

Have you ever lost something and tore up the house looking for something, perhaps for days? That was me today. I had misplaced, and emphasize misplaced a few objects, four to be exact. I looked for at least week for these objects and over the course of the week I found them one by one. Now, you can’t tell me that God isn’t in the details of our lives. He helped me, He guided me to my missing objects. And no, it’s not luck, it’s not coincidence, it’s is all God. Why, do I believe this?

I searched for days looking for a Valentine my mom made me, a bookmark my aunt made, a battery charger for my phone (y’know the ones you carry with you to charge your phone on the go?) and a trinket box I needed for a craft project for an event at church. All these were very valuable to me, but the trinket box with scripture stones inside is what I really needed for a meeting this coming weekend. I prayed each time to find these things and one by one, I found them over the course of the week. Believe what you want but it’s no coincidence. I believe God taught me somethings through this.

  1. He hears our prayers. There are numerous verses from Old Testament to New about God hearing our prayers and answering our requests. Check them out here.
  2. Matthew 6:26 – “2 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” God cares about what I care about and some of my lost items are treasures and some I really needed to find.

It was nagging me, killing me not to able to find these items. And each time I found one, it was in a place I didn’t expect to find and when I was looking for one in particular, I found one of the other ones. The trinket box was the last one I found and I totally forgot I used it to elevate and small lamp that was sitting low in a box on my armoire. I was freaking because I didn’t want to make this again. So I prayed again, in desperation. I began to comb all the places I had looked one more time, maybe it was in plain sight I was overlooking it. Then for the third time I looked on top of the armoire and saw the lamp on something, and there it was. Thank you Jesus!

One more verse popped in my head, about the woman and the lost coin, Luke 15:8-10 – “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (NIV) Funny thing was I wanted to tell my friend I found the trinket box then I couldn’t find my phone. **smacks head**( I did find it buried under my Bible. And I know the rejoicing here is about sinners repenting, but it does refer to something lost and found and rejoicing).

I began to think about Jeremiah 29:13 – “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” If we look for God WHOLEHEARTEDLY we will find Him. My search for these items was urgent, desperate, I was determined to find them. I began to think, do I search for God like this? I do read His Word daily, but am I doing it wholeheartedly, desperately, urgently? Many times I am distracted by to do lists, bills, housework … I’m sure you can relate.

How do we seek God with all our heart? What does it mean, what does that look like? Stay tuned for the second half as I explore this more. Please let me know if is this is something you struggle with and what seeking God wholeheartedly means to you.

Don’t forget to subscribe, like, share and follow me on social media. Until then Anchor in Hope!