Learning to Seek God

“My heart says of you, 'Seek His face!' Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Ps. 27:8).

Many times in the Bible, we are told to seek the Lord. We are to love Him, ask of Him, inquire of Him, and pursue Him (Matt. 7:7; Ps. 27:4). How exactly do we do this? 

Since God is everywhere all the time, why do we need to seek Him? God is never lost or missing! Seeking is discovering more about God by inquiring of Him, pursuing a deeper relationship with Him, and going toward Him. All these definitions of “seek” involve time and effort. Without time and effort, our hope to seek God will fizzle out and die. Perhaps we will even end up ignoring Him. No wonder we're encouraged to have a daily devotional time with God!  

As we read the Bible, God teaches us about Himself and His love for us as well as about our nature and struggles. The Holy Spirit softens our hearts, convicts us, and comforts us. We become familiar with God’s presence and increasingly experience God’s love. We develop a relationship with God that isn’t based on feelings, but should include them. God helps us find interesting connections between our Bible reading and our surroundings. He is always planting seeds that will grow in us as we learn to sit in His presence and seek Him more and more. Finding that daily time to meet with Him that works can be challenging, but it’s worthwhile.

Friendship with God is a start, but truly desiring Him is even more of a blessing, and it’s what He truly wants from us. As I read the many times Jesus condemned the Pharisees’ approach of looking obedient but not having a heart truly transformed, I see that it’s not religion that God wants. God wants us to seek Him because we love Him, adore Him, can’t bear to be apart from Him. “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:12-13). 

When I was a kid, despite how careful we were, my siblings and I would often end up losing a library book. My desire to search hard for the missing book hinged on whether it was mine or not. I would be taking my room apart piece by piece if the book was mine, but if the missing book belonged to one of my brothers or sisters, my attitude changed completely. In that case, my usual M.O. was not to look much at all, but to appear busy searching if my parents walked by. I was feigning obedience with no real desire or concern. 

How often do we do the same thing to God? I know that I have tried to trick God by pretending to care about Him and His ways at times when my heart was focused on wanting other things. Not only is He not impressed, but know my behavior was offensive to Him. We can be sure that pretending to seek God or seeking Him half-heartedly never ends with us finding God.

Another important aspect in seeking God is that we need to also have the intention of obeying Him. We have to decide to both submit to God and obey Him no matter what is challenging, especially in our society where we are taught to care most about ourselves. 

Some helpful advice I’ve taken to heart is to practice submission to God all the time. That way, when the moment of obedience arrives, I’m more ready to obey without it being such a fight inside. I try to pray every day that God’s will would be done, not mine. That’s not easy to even say, much less mean, so I say it over and over and allow Him to let the words soak into my heart. I’ve gotten more creative through the years and worked on picturing my will, crooked and curvy, next to God’s perfectly straight, unchanging will. I pray often that God will align my will to His, straightening what is crooked and aligning me perfectly to Him. It’s also helpful to practice saying “Yes, Lord” frequently so that the answer is ready on my lips when He asks me to obey, whether it’s easy or hard. Through time, I’ve come to really want God’s will to be done. It may have started as only words, but now it’s my heart’s desire.

Seeking God doesn’t always end up with us finding Him—we wouldn’t need faith if it did! He is still there, but times will come when we can’t sense or feel Him and need to learn that we are still okay. God’s thoughts and ways are much higher than ours, so it makes sense that we won’t always understand why He acts the way He does (Isa. 55:8). Eventually, parents work on helping their little one know that she is still okay when Dad and Mom leave the room for a moment; they will come back. The same is true of God. It’s wise to be sure that we are obeying Him and on the right track. If so, then we just need to have faith God is still there and will continue to reveal Himself to us as He sees fit.

Seeking God is not an easy process, but the effort it requires is always worthwhile. God walks with us the whole way. He wants us to seek Him wholeheartedly and He has every intention of blessing us with finding Him. I love knowing that I have a constant companion, friend, father, and lover always with me. Once we know Him in this way, we won’t want to live life any other way.

~ By Pam Piersma.Pam works at their city’s local shopper’s newspaper office. In her free time, she enjoys writing, playing guitar, and being involved on her church’s worship team at Northbridge Community Church. Additionally, she  is a wife and mother of four from rural Otsego, Mich. Check her blog out at reluctantdreamerblog.wordpress.com.