First Thing, Seek God with All Your Heart

Often as a seeker after God, scriptures verses intersect my life. It is at that point of intersection that I find myself pulled in for further meditation. Recently several verses intersected along with an email from a new friend.

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1 (NIV)

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

These two verse intersected with the word earnestly seek, which although is two words in English, in both Hebrew and Greek, one word. The Hebrew word implies not just earnest seeking as in effort, but first effort, to seek early. As always seeking after God implies prayer and quiet devotion alone with God and as most people who practice daily prayer insist to not let your feet hit the ground until your heart has been lifted in prayer. There is something about that priority that pleases God and will bring a harvest of rewards if diligently practiced.

To diligently seek God most certainly means daily in our life, but I want to expand that to include early in the events of our life. Early in our relationships we should seek God, early in our new businesses, job starts, early in our investments of time and certainly in a ministry start prayer should come first. As our new Children's Director has come on board, even before her office hours have begun, she has initiated a time of prayer with her workers. Because we have one service when we serve we miss worship. We are able to listen to the sermon online during the week, but we still miss the praise time. So starting this week she is meeting with those who earnestly desire to meet with God in this effort to come and listen to the praise band practice and then go off for a time of corporate prayer for the church and the children's ministry in particular. How excited I am to see her first steps in ministry to be so God honoring and to be invited to join her in this.

Lord, help us to see the value of our earnest prayer to you. We know like the heroes of the faith in Hebrews we may never see the outcome of our efforts in full on this earth. May the knowledge that our earnest seeking pleases you, be our reward.