SEEKING HEARTS

“When You said, “Seek My face,” MY HEART said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek” – Psalm 27:8

God cherishes passionate and SEEKING HEARTS: “When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Psa.27:8). Here, the Psalmist acknowledged that the idea of seeking God’s face originated not with us but with God. He extends the invitation to all, but not everyone hears the cry of His Heart and responds. While many acknowledge God, few take time to wait for His Presence and to listen to His voice. Psalm 27 is a poetic prayer of King David; a cry for help in a time of great distress, a renewed vow of faithfulness to God and ultimately a statement of Faith in His power and complete trust in the protection that only God can provide. The seeking heart is the fearless Heart: “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear” (v.3a).

Our Lord Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek and keep on seeking and you will find’” (Mt. 7:7, Amp). This echoes the words of the prophet Jeremiah to the Israelites, “And you will SEEK ME and FIND ME, when you search for Me with ALL OUR HEART” (Jer.29:13). God wants to be found, and even guarantees our success, if we don’t give up. It appears that God wants to be pursued by His own, as a sign of our genuine love; hence His Presence may not always be easy to sense or His voice obvious. Beyond being a sign of our love – there is something in the pursuit of God’s face that stirs our hearts to greater love!

It’s not sufficient to engage in spiritual window shopping, listening to past stories of revivals, miracles that happened to others, what they experienced or were shown in prayer. Nothing compares with personally encountering and breathing in God’s Presence. We cannot fully grow off of other people’s experiences. We must learn to get into God’s Presence: “But from there you will SEEK the Lord your God, and you will FIND Him if you SEEK Him with ALL your HEART and with ALL your soul” (Deut.4:29). Isaiah 55:6 says, “SEEK the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” God has put enough of Himself in creation that those who are looking for Him can find Him, and those that aren’t might miss Him.

God wants to be sought after and found, if only we’ll get past all the distractions around us. Each of us needs to daily look for God in the midst of the chaos of the day. It takes a conscious effort to ensure we’re looking for Him, but He certainly rewards those who do. God’s priority is that we seek His Presence personally and passionately, notwithstanding the associated cost: time that we could be doing something else: “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” (v.4). Let’s make God our greatest need and pay the price to seek Him through worship, praise, reading the Scriptures, praying, and listening.

In Psalm 27, we see a passionate response from the depth of the heart: “I am seeking, and will continue to seek until I find.” After this pledge, the Psalmist struggled with some doubt, but eventually concluded that he will succeed, as long as he didn’t give up: “I would have lost HEART, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your HEART; wait, I say, on the Lord!” (vv.13-14). Oh, that we’ll join with the Psalmist in his pursuit, not giving up our heart-felt seeking and searching until we find God’s Face and encounter His loving Heart: “Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who SEEK HIM with the WHOLE HEART!” (Psa.119:2). The seeking heart is the blessed heart!