Tag Archives: seeking God

wanted

He calls out. He has always called out. He is the initiator, the pursuer, the One doing the calling, the beckoning, the inviting. Always the inviting.

Return to Me

“You have gone off, in search of other loves. You have wandered from Me,  preferring instead things that cannot love you, cannot save you, cannot be Me for you. But I have not forgotten you. Even now, I call for your return. Though you have strayed, though you have turned to idols for comfort, I call for your return. Return to Me, and I will return to you. As the father watches for the prodigal, I watch for you, ready to run to meet you as you come up from the far country. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you. You are Mine. You are loved.”

Come to Me

“Aren’t you tired of striving? Haven’t you wearied yet of your attempts to ‘get it right’? You keep Me at arm’s length because you believe you aren’t yet good enough to come any closer. Who has laid such a burden on you? Who has convinced you that there is a measuring rod called “good enough”? Who has set the yoke upon your neck that forces you to labor for My love? It was not Me. I long to give you rest from all of that. Come to Me, all the way to Me. Don’t stop short. I have no intention of making you crawl or beg. My heart is for you to come with boldness, confident in My love for you. I bled enough blood, there has been enough atonement made for you, enough death was died for you to live. Don’t you see? Enough is done. Just come to Me.”

Seek Me

“Look for Me. I won’t hide from you. I will always let you find Me. You have looked for life among the dead. Seek Me and live. You have looked for what is good in a world that has fallen under the grip of sin, for love in all the wrong places, for compassion among those who are empty, for significance in a shallow world. Seek Me. Your search will not be in vain. In Me you will find everything your heart has been longing to find. Look for Me. I am not hiding. I want to be found by you.”

It has always been this way. He calls to us, always, as in that first, “Where are you?”.  With loving kindness He draws us to Himself. With patience, He watches for our return from the far country of our own ways. With gentleness, He beckons us to bend our neck and let the yoke of slavery and striving fall, so that we can rest. And when we seek, and even when we don’t, we find Him. Because love was His idea and we are the objects of love. We are wanted. Always. No matter what rags we are wearing or the stench we carry with us. He wants us. Even  if we march to the beat of a drum no one else can hear, He wants us. In our poverty, we are wanted. In our searchings and cravings, broken or whole, we are wanted by the God who created us.

“I loved you first.

First, I loved you.

Nothing has changed.”

Isaiah 44:22; Luke 15:17-20; Matthew 11:28-30; Galatians 5:1; Isaiah 45:19; Isaiah 65:1; Amos 5:4; Jeremiah 29:13; 1John 4:19, and many more.

uncomfortable goodness

The goodness of God makes me uncomfortable. Suddenly, the desires of my heart are being met and I discover a new fear hiding within me. Every few days it crawls out of the deep place in my heart and stops me mid-dance, whispering that God’s goodness is not free. Not for me. Convincing me that there must be a catch. There must be a hard lesson coming.

God is good. His word proclaims it, and my life proves it. So what is this fear that kicks at my feet while I’m dancing for joy? Why am I waiting for the door to slam? Why would God be this good to me? There. That’s the real question slamming against the sides of my brain. Why, God?

Maybe I had prayed enough, repented enough, been kind enough to strangers. Maybe I really was good enough to earn the favor of God. Or maybe my pride is quickly sucking up all the oxygen in the room. Stupid theory #1 was quickly abandoned.

So here I sit in God’s goodness and I’m squirming with a sort of weird discomfort. Because I can’t find the reason. And I can’t find the reason that I need a reason. It’s all quite maddening. And this exposure of my heart is like a fly that continually dive bombs a really good nap. I’m trying to enjoy this goodness (before it disappears?), but my heart is naked again and I want to yell at God to stop doing this to me.

Because I’ve been here before – heart exposed to the One who formed it. Light goes deep and I remember long ago mouthing the words uttered by King David,  “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” This exposure is what I had asked of my ever faithful God, because my own heart was as much as mystery to me as His. And cleansing doesn’t happen to hidden things.

In my discomfort I asked “Why are You being so good to me?”.

In His cleansing He asked His own question. “To whom are you comparing Me?” Light comes far too swiftly for dark to get out of the way.

I live in a world where, just like love, goodness needs a reason. It is a cynical, un-trusting world, and while I am in it but not of it, sometimes I view God through it. Which is a blame-the-world way to say that I am often cynical and untrusting toward God.

The fear, the questions, the wondering…all of the discomfort once again comes back to one thing. What do I really believe about God?

Somewhere from the back of my mind I hear a familiar refrain: “If something seems to be too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.”

And so I return to my place of refuge. In this place, He will speak truth and the lies will bow down. My exposed heart will be comforted and cleansed.

“Then Moses said, ‘Now show me your glory.’ And the Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you…'” (Exodus 33:18-19)

Moses wanted to see My glory. I answered by showing Him My goodness. Goodness is not something I do, it is who I am.

“They will tell of the power of your awesome works, and I will proclaim your great deeds. They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.” (Psalm 145:6-7)

My goodness is not meager. Not doled out in drips.  It is abundant, poured out, celebration worthy goodness.

“You are good, and what you do is good.” (Psalm 119:68)

I am good and I do not change, and my goodness extends to everything I do. It is not tied to circumstance. I will not be good today, and not good tomorrow. Your circumstances may change. Storms will invade your life. Trials will come. Difficulties will arise. You dwell in a fallen world, but I am not a fallen God. No matter what happens, I will still be good. To you.

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” (Proverbs 8:17)

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

My goodness is not trickery, nor is it fickle. It is a part of the promise. When you seek Me, you find Me. When you find Me, you find My goodness. 

In utter desperation I have sought God…and found the only thing that is not too good to be true. Abundant goodness. Worth celebrating. Worth proclaiming.

“I will sing to the Lord,
for He has been good to me.”

To me. Because He is God. Because He is good.

the writing in the dust

Twenty-two years and seven months ago I surrendered my life to Christ. I was an emotional wreck, my marriage was a mess, I had a 3 year old daughter and was 9 months pregnant with my son. I was in crisis and, for the next twenty years or so, I remained in crisis. My marriage went from bad to worse to dead, while at the same time my daughter went spiraling out of control into self-destructive darkness.

In the midst of all of that, I discovered God. He taught me how to fight, and how to run for cover behind Him while the enemy assaulted my family relentlessly. I came to know His faithfulness, His power, and His own relentlessness to protect and defend that which is His. I came to know my all powerful, ever faithful God through a very long time of crisis. And now, my marriage is restored, and both of my kids are living lives sold out for Jesus. The dust has settled, and God stands victorious over the enemy who sought so hard to destroy a family. So for the past two years I have been trying to figure out what this nagging feeling deep inside of me is about. Why do I feel like I am wandering aimlessly around, looking for something I cannot define? This morning I figured it out. Actually, God figured it out and then told me about it.

I don’t know how to do relationship with God without a crisis.

For two years I have blamed this emptiness, this total dissatisfaction inside of me on everything from empty-nest syndrome to menopause, and my latest one…depression. All of those things are true in my life, but they are simply words to describe my behavior. They don’t explain the ache deep inside of me that co-exists with complete numbness. My empty nest isn’t the real reason that I feel more lost than found, or why the scriptures that gave me life all those years now look like just words on a page. This is me, being real. Because I can’t be anything else right now. I don’t have the strength for it.

But at least I know what it is now. I feel as though God just wrote it in the dust on my dining room table (because depressed, menopausal women who live in empty nests don’t dust very often), and He and I just are staring at the truth in that dust. Now what? Do I introduce myself to this omnipotent Being who just pulled my family from the wreckage of hell, as we both stand here in the after-the-war silence? What do I say, when shouting and declaring His promises over my family seems out of place now?

It was the voice of my daughter that God used to write the truth in that dust. We had a conversation this morning…her in Africa, me here in this very quiet house in Illinois. As I told her a little bit of my “empty-nest” woes, she matter of factly said this, in so many words:

“Being a wife and mother is a gift God gave to you, but it is not why He created you. You were made for relationship with Him, so maybe that’s what you need to concentrate on now.”

That’s what I heard my daughter saying to me. But what I saw God writing in the dust was, “You don’t know how to be in relationship with Me outside of a crisis”.

So, here’s the deal. I love God. I love His Word. I know His faithfulness and His power to heal and restore the most broken things. I know Him as a victorious God that puts the enemy to flight, chases after prodigals until they chase Him back, and turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. I know Him in the rage, chaos and deafening sounds of battle. I know my place and my purpose in the war.

I’m just unsure of what to do in green pastures, beside quiet waters.

Standing across from Him, staring at the truth, I could think of only one thing…

“My heart says of You, ‘Seek His face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek.” (Ps. 27:8)