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Seeking God Wholeheartedly

The Kedge Anchor
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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.

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