He Has Always Been Seeking Me

We all treat God too passively. We think of Him as distant, or moving in our lives only if we initiate something.

Many Christians still live their lives trapped in this notion that nothing will happen unless they start things on their own.

There is so much wrong with this thinking.

Let's start with the first verse of the Bible:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

God created everything. He initiated everything, and that includes you and men.

None of could have ever existed without Him.

And let's take a look at John's Gospel for further clarity on this issue:

"1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men." (John 1:1-4)

"All things were made by Him." We did not make ourselves! (Psalm 100:3)

Can we trust that the Creator is on our side, though? He have made everything, but this fallen world is scary, disturbing, and there is a sense that things are not on our side. Perhaps God is not for us?

Here's the clear response to that:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

God the Father so loved us, and that He gave His Son! He called His Son "Beloved," by the way:

"And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17)

God the Father cares very much for His Son, and yet He gave His Son for us! For you and me!

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

And

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)

So, we can rest assured that God is on our side.

But ... there was a personal reflection on my walk that revealed so much more to me about Daddy God!

In 2008, when I was struggling with an intense amount of anxiety, I felt so lost in the world, I felt so uncared for. I felt ... alone. Yes, I read my Bible every day, yes I was praying a great deal, but I found myself wrestling with all kinds of difficult, unwelcome, intruding thoughts. It was a challenging life, to say the least.

Then I started meditating on this verse:

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." (Isaiah 26:3)

So, for me, I built my whole life on this one verse. I reasoned from this verse: "God will take care of me if I focus on Him completely." I didn't know how to do that, nor did I pay clearer attention to the verse. Worst of all, I made the mistake that Peter cautions the church to avoid:

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation." (2 Peter 1:20)

But that's what I did. And when we don't have the rest of Scripture to inform our understanding of God's Word, or worse yet when we look at the Bible apart from its central theme--Jesus!--we are going to misconstrue verses or turn things into a work!

And that's what I did. I thought I had to hold onto God, or keep Him in my mind. Hence, I was bigger than He was. I treated God so small, and the tension in my life would rise and fall so much because I feared that perhaps I was not "staying" my mind enough on God!

When I thought about this mental and spiritual struggle earlier this week, I started to get scared. "Well, If I was misconstruing Scripture, when I was doing the best that I could to be right with God, then what would have prevented me from falling away entirely?"

Daddy God came through with a profound, wonderful revelation:

"Arthur, I was always coming after you, before you even knew Me, and even when you were believing wrong things about me, I was still on the job. I was always coming after you!"

That revelation was truly amazing, and further solidified such a profound revelation that I have finally received in greater measure this past year.

He is real, He is on the job, He is not some figment or exercise of my imagination, and He has been loving my actively the whole time. For too long, I had tied my thoughts, feelings, and circumstances to the final determination whether God was for me or against me. My world-view was too narrow, seeing God as someone whom I would bring into my life, when He has always been in place throughout my daily walking and talking and thinking and feeling and all the rest, whether I acknowledged Him or not!

Then I remembered this parable in the Gospel of Luke:

"3And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing." (Luke 15:3-5)

Jesus our Savior, our Lord is actively seeking to save as many people as possible! The Gospel is as simple as believing in Him! (John 6:29). The only repentence needed from each of us is to consent to be carried, to be rescued by Him!

For years, I was taught that I had to do my part to be liked, to be favored, to be loved and cared for by God. How wrong I was on all fronts. All of the wrong believing, all of the bad teaching which I had received treated God as a faraway figure forcing us to fend for ourselves in this fallen world. That was NEVER the case, and it has been a long time coming for me to see how active and involved He is, and He has always been, in my life.

Thank you, Jesus!