Find Him There

Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near. Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously. (Isaiah 55:6-7 NLT)

Those who seek will find. Those who hunger will be fed. Those who hurt will be healed. Those who obey will be blessed. There are a multitude of promises in scripture, all promising hope for a particular spiritual, emotional, or physical need within our lives. The premise for all those promises is a seeking heart. When our heart is set to 'seek mode', our needs are sure to be met!

Seeking isn't haphazard, though. We are to 'seek while we can find him'. There may be those who have no desire to find what it is they need the most. I have noticed that I find God in the weirdest places sometimes. I didn't even know I was seeking at that particular moment, but I must have had an open heart because he comes on the wings of a crane flying high over the lake, or in the tiniest of movements of the lapping water on the shoreline. It isn't hard to find him wherever you are willing to meet him - you just need a seeking heart.

Call on him while he is near. As you may have figured out already, God comes to those who want to be near him. He draws near as we draw near. It is as though he 'leans in' to get a bit closer. There have been moments when I was so deep into worship that I could almost feel his breath. The more we desire that closeness, the more he reveals himself to us. 

There is a clear command here - turn, seek, call upon him. Turn away from those things that interfere with that closeness of relationship. Turn toward him with an open and obedient heart. Seek his grace as much as you seek his blessings. Turn away from sin and toward right living. Begin to scour his Word with a seeking heart and you will find that the very thoughts of doing wrong will be stripped away. Your desires will change - perhaps not instantly, but more and more each day you seek and call upon him.

Seek, call, and he will be near. Those who turn toward God will find forgiveness. Not just forgiveness, but GENEROUS forgiveness. We could all use more than one dose of that 'medicine', couldn't we? Just askin...