| May 12, 2018 -- Most of you, at one time or another, have probably heard the choral piece which begins
“If with all you r hearts ye truly seek me, ye shall ever surely find me. Thus saith your God.”
The words are by Julius Schubring, set to music from Mendelsson’s “Elijah”. It is a paraphrase of Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. This, in turn, is similar to what Moses tells the Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy, warning them against the evils they will fi nd when they first enter the Promised Land, and how to overcome them: “But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.” And lastly, 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.
But, you may ask, “Why should we seek the Lord?” Let’s try an analogy. Suppose you should find yourself at a large gathering, where you don’t know most of the people present, nor do you understand much of what is going on around you. Would you not seek out someone you knew and trusted, both to be a companion, and to guide you in understanding what was going on? Now, isn’t that really a description of the world we live in, where we don’t know most of the people other than our family and a few close friends, and where we really don’t understand much of what is going on?
So, let us reach out to someone who we know and can trust and will be a faithful companion. God is right there, waiting for us to call upon Him. And we know we can trust him. We even put “in God we trust” on our currency. Proverbs 3:5-6 says Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Establishing that we should trust God, can we also consider God a friend? In the Letter of James we read “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.” Therefore let us seek the Lord, that we may have him as both guide and friend.
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