how hard do I seek?

I got to have coffee with a good friend of mine tonight.  I love grabbing coffee with Teah because she loves Jesus and she loves Him deeply and our conversation quickly turns toward deeper things than talking about the weather.

we started talking about what it means to truly seek the Lord.

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

the Hebrew word used for “seek” is “darash” and it means to seek with care, to be sought.

in Matthew 7:7, Jesus says:
”“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

the Greek word used in Matt. 7:7 for “seek” is “zēteō” and it means “to crave” or “to seek in order to find”.

I loved Teah’s analogy.  how often do we lose something and are desperate to find it?  when I was home this winter, I was staying at my family’s place.  my 2-year old nephew, Ben, loves car keys.  like, literally – as soon as you turn the car off, he’s on you.  “Keys!  Me want…CAR KEYS!!” and he looks at you with these big, innocent blue eyes and holds out his hand and cocks his head to the side and smiles.  and he has this adorable deep, husky voice because he screamed so much as a baby (true story).  you can’t deny the kid.  so, wanting to be the cool aunt that I am, I gave him my keys and told him not to lose them (hindsight is 20/20).  I went inside and later that night, when it was dark and I needed to leave, I remembered I didn’t have my keys.  and Ben was asleep.  and we all know the cardinal rule – never wake a sleeping toddler once you’ve gotten them to bed.

so we checked his shorts’ pockets.  we checked drawers.  we checked counter tops and tables.  we checked his toy trucks.  we looked everywhere.  then we remembered he was playing outside when I gave him the keys and he had continued playing outside for awhile.  so outside we went, flashlights in hand, scouring the yard around the swing set and anywhere else we thought he may’ve gone.  nothing.

how often do I seek that desperately after God?  how often do I desperately seek to know Him more, to gain wisdom and understanding from His Word?  how often do I earnestly sit in stillness and quiet and wait to hear His voice?

I have to admit, I searched harder for those car keys than I often seek after God.  we live in a “I want it now” culture.  fast food.  fast internet.  everything right at our fingertips with our smart phones.  we are accustomed to getting what we want, when we want it.

I think we’ve lost the art of seeking.  the art of patiently yet earnestly seeking.

I don’t think God responds to us instantly a lot of times.  I know He can and He does.  but I think a lot of times, He desires to refine us, restore us, reveal Himself to us through a process and not with instant answers.  I mean, we’re told to seek.  to search after.  to think, to meditate.  none of that jives with the “I want it now” mentality we’ve come to accept.

and so – may we seek the Lord.  may we truly seek with our whole heart, our whole mind – with everything that is within us.  may we not be satisfied with instant answers but may we continue to search after Truth and wisdom from the Creator of Truth and wisdom.

oh to be a desperate seeker.