What are you waiting for? “Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.” When I first read this verse, I thought to myself, “God isn’t going anywhere, is he?” No! God isn’t going anywhere, but we can often drift away from him. If you are reading this, you are probably looking to grow closer to God in your journey of faith. It’s so much easier to connect when we’re burning bright for God rather than to wait until a rainy day.
The other phenomenon that happens is that when we are not seeking the Lord and something bad happens, we don’t necessarily see God as the solution. We try to fix things on our own using our own power. I don’t know about you, but I am confident that the Holy Spirit’s power is much greater than my own personal power. When we can stay plugged in to that, we are so much better off, during the good times and the challenging times.
I recall an old saying, “don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” or something like that. I think Benjamin Franklin gets credit for that. There is a lot of truth in it. Another question that fits in nicely with this is, “do you know where you’ll end up if you died tomorrow?” If we put off seeking God, we are taking a chance on not being ready to meet him. My heart breaks when I think of the people who die every day who have not had a personal relationship with Jesus.
Our brains are amazing organs, but we have limits. “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” We have a hard time wrapping our minds around the intricacies of creation and our existence, our destiny of salvation, or how God can love us so much to have sent his son to die. We are better served when we remember God is God and we are not. God is worthy of our praise and adoration.
Think of the people first hearing these words. They didn’t think they were sinful. They were in denial. They didn’t understand clearly how God viewed them. I heard recently of a story of a very nice man who wanted to become a Christian. He was told the first thing he needed to do was repent. He couldn’t think of any sins he had committed. He was looking at himself through the weakness of our human viewpoint.
After a few months of diligent Bible reading, the same man was humbled by his sinful behaviors. He had discovered what it meant. He was starting to see his behaviors more as God saw them. It does us good to look at our own actions, listen to our own vocabulary. What do people see when they see us? What does being a forgiven sinner mean to you?
Let’s pray … Lord, forgive me when I try to do things on my own in my own power. You are so much better at everything; may I rely on you. Thank you for how you are blessing me each day. I want my life to be a reflection of you and your goodness. Thank you for loving me and forgiving me no matter how I might mess things up. Empower me to be ready to live the life you have planned for me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
