Seeking
This post has been adapted from a message from the Rev David Turtle at the 24-7 Prayer Night that took place on Sunday 17th March at Trinity Methodist Church in Lisburn.
Over the past few months, a verse – and in particular, a part of a verse – has had special significance within the Methodist Church across the island.
Hosea 10:12 – ‘It is time to seek the Lord.’
Seeking is a word we hear a lot about. Perhaps, we all have our own associations which maybe flavour what we think of when we hear that word. However, one of the things which comes to mind for me when I think about seeking is our son Sam.
We have attended Castlewellan Holiday Week as a family for around 16 or 17 years now, and it was in two of those early years, when Sam was something like 4 or 5, which I associate with seeking, because Sam had this unique ability to quietly vanish! We would be around the caravan, maybe friends would be there. Sam was just playing close by – and then a few seconds later – he was gone without trace. Over the course of those couple of years – we probably rounded up search parties on about 2 or 3 occasions.
Probably by the last of the ‘Sam’s gone missing again’ occasions we were a bit more relaxed about it! He had always been found, and usually he was looking around somewhere blissfully unaware that there was any problem, but it wasn’t like that the first time he was lost. I can still almost sense the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, that first time when he disappeared and 10, 15 minutes later we still hadn’t found him – the sense of seeking becomes filled with desperation and urgency. It gives focus to the seeking. Every other concern or priority we had disappeared. In those moments, the seeking until Sam was found was the only thing that mattered.
Hosea speaks out to Israel and Judah and says: It is time to seek the Lord!
And it’s time for that kind of seeking, the kind that is filled with focus, the kind that nothing else matters but seeking after God!
Being called a seeker maybe carries a different meaning in the world of the last 50-60 years than it did before then. I think I’m being fair when I say that in wider society, seeking now tends to mean something shallower. The word ‘seeker’ is often used to describe people who are kind-of spiritually unattached. Who maybe don’t really identify themselves as belonging to any faith in particular. And then, within the Church – we’ve tended to use the idea of seeking to describe those who haven’t come to the point of making a faith commitment yet. – with the, perhaps, unintended consequence of communicating that we stop seeking when we do make a commitment to Jesus!
During Lent I was prompted to read A.W. Tozer’s book ‘The Pursuit of God. In this season where we as a denomination have been focused on seeking God, this is what Tozer says about staying a seeker:
“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”
The children of the burning heart are seekers... and it’s time to seek the Lord.
Scripture encourages this sense of seeking within us:
Psalm 63:1 reads, ‘You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.’ In Jeremiah 29:13-14, the Lord declares to His people, ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.’ Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, ‘Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’ And in Matthew 7:7-8 He invites, ‘Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.’
In the history of the Church – the times when the Spirit has moved with extra-ordinary power and grace are usually times after when God starts to stir a hunger for Himself among His people. When His people are seeking after God Himself, the Spirit comes and does amazing things in the Church and in their land.
Hosea speaks out to the people of God:
“Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unploughed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.’
The primary focus is not to seek renewal, the primary focus is not to seek revival, the primary focus is to seek the Lord Himself! Blessing, and renewal and revival often come to our lives and the lives of others when we seek the Lord, but the blessing, renewal and revival isn’t the focus of our seeking.
We seek the Lord because He, Himself is worthy of being sought.
This is why 24-7 Prayer are calling God’s people on this island to a year of unceasing prayer. This is why we have been calling Methodists across the island to prayer and fasting.
It has been encouraging to hear feedback from congregations and individuals who have found that these 40 days of Lent have stirred up a hunger and urgency to seek God for this Island. Many have shared a common theme that God has so much more to do in and through us. The Spirit is moving, can we sense it? Our call as followers of Jesus, as Methodists in Ireland, is to keep on asking, to keep on seeking, to keep on knocking. Our call to seek the Lord is not a one-off, or limited to 40 days, it is a call that is day after day, hour after hour. We must not become weary in this pursuit, we must not become complacent or comfortable, we must be seekers of the Lord until he comes again.
I return to the words of Tozer once more, as I believe it is significant that we hear his words and think of how much our world has changed, remembering though that this was published in 1948.
In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears… there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct “interpretations” of truth. They are a thirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water. – The Pursuit of God (A.W. Tozer)
May we be filled with a thirst for God; filled with an urgency to seek Him in this time and place.
May we be filled with a relentless desire to fast and pray for God to make Himself known in this age.
May we take to heart, that this pursuit of God is not limited to a 40-day period of Lent, but to a continual journey after God our whole lives long.
Lord, may we be your wholehearted followers; come transform our world. Amen.