Seeking God

The seeking of the Lord is a continuous action. It is so continuous that you never “find” him, like you might a lost watch or the car keys. Rather, you keep seeking for more and finding out more of Him. He is an exhaustless person with endless facets.

My wife and I have been seeking each other for over 28 years. We think we know each other, and then we find something new. This is mostly because we tend to change, grow, and mature. So when we think we’ve discovered something, something new is in it’s place!

But God is different. We don’t discover more of Him because He is maturing. He never changes. He is just inexhaustible! We keep seeking because He cannot be “found out”.

What makes David cry out in Ps. 63:1 O God, you are my God! I long for you!
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water?

Or Paul say in Phil. 1:21 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain?

Or Augustine say, Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee?

Or Frederick Faber (19TH century hymn writer and theologian) say, “Only to sit and think of God, Oh what a joy it is! To think the thought, to breathe the Name; Earth has no higher bliss."?

What makes these people appear to live on a higher plane? What makes them pursue God and delight in Him more than anything else?

I’m convinced it is this: They all had what A.W. Tozer called spiritual receptivity. We all have 5 senses with which we experience the world (i.e. sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell). But we also possess spiritual faculties with which we can “sense” God.

I think Jesus was referring to this in John 5:19 So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise….”

Jesus had spiritual eyes to see what the Father was doing. He watched the Father at work and did like things. Tozer also called this “habitual conscious communion with God”.

That is what I want to encourage in you today: Habitual conscious communion with God.

I think that the only way to develop our spiritual senses is to develop a habit of communing with God, consciously, daily, and moment by moment.

If you are like me, I tend to go from one thing to the next, having different attitudes and actions, depending on the context.

Now we’re doing church and Sunday School. After this, we’ll do “lunch”, and then “nap”, and then, …whatever! (TV, reading, playing, talking, etc) We will do this until it’s time to do the church thing again.

During the week, we may do the breakfast thing, exercise thing, quiet time thing, work thing, etc. But those who have developed this spiritual receptivity, these spiritual eyes to see what God is doing, can move into that place and join Him!

How do we do it?
• Spend time with people who have it
• Read books by people who have it
• Spend time with people who want it
• Ask for it! (most importantly)

Listen to the prayer of one man I believe had "it":

O God, I have tasted Thy Goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.