Worth Repeating - June 11, 2017

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

Sinners can’t find God for the same reason a bank robber doesn’t want to find a police officer.*

You’ve heard it said – and maybe you’ve said it yourself – “Where was God when I needed him?” It’s all well and good to believe that God never forsakes us, but what comfort is that as we watch a loved one suffer and die? When we are betrayed by a spouse or a dear friend? I have three friends each of whom has a son who suffers from bipolar disorder and/or substance abuse. What am I supposed to say to them when everything is beyond their control and nothing makes their sons any better?

Are you expecting me to reveal the answers to these questions? Prepare for disappointment. Nothing I say will make a difference. I might be able to do something that will offer a small measure of comfort and of course I can pray for my friends, but the fact is, everyone has to find the face of God for herself.  When you pray and plead with God and it seems like he isn’t listening, I won’t tell you what you need to do. I won’t tell you to pray harder, and I won’t say, “Just turn it over to the Lord.” I will not insult you by implying that you just aren’t trying hard enough. 

What I will tell you is this: God’s promises are true. In this verse God tells his audience – the Israelites in Babylonian captivity – that they will find him if they seek him with all their hearts. We might shrug and say, “Well, that applies to them, not to me.” Ah, but Jesus says, in Matthew 7: 7, “Seek and you will find.” In Hebrews 11: 6, we are reminded that without faith it is impossible to please God and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

God doesn’t hide from us, but there are conditions to finding him. We must “seek him in Christ, who is the only way to the Father.”* In Jesus’ own words, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  (John 14: 6) These aren’t promises that your problems will go away. They are promises that you will find God.

We seek to find Christ in our vigor; but he often comes to us instead in suffering. We pursue him in success; we find him in defeat. We desire to have him meet us in exaltation; but he is frequently at the end of humiliation. We assume following him will mean gain; he is our Lord in loss. We want him with abundance; but he speaks to us in poverty. We long to be his friend in the resurrection; but in this life, he offers us the cross.*