Why aren't we seeking after God?
- Jacob Ninan
I am not thinking about people seeking God when they are in trouble. Most of us do go after God at such times. In fact, those may be times God is trying to catch our attention by shaking us a bit. He wasn't able to get through to us by ordinary means, and so He hopes that at least 'problems' may cause us to take notice of Him. My question is why we aren't seeking after God all the time. The answer is that we have dozed off, spiritually speaking.
Jesus said that it was only the sick and not the healthy ones who needed a doctor (Lk.5:31). We may think that we have come to the Saviour, we are already saved, and now we are OK! Are we, really? What about the "sins that easily beset us" (He.12:1)? We are justified, but have we become like Jesus yet? Aren't there a lot of spiritual sicknesses in us that need to be dealt with by the Divine Physician? But we may have dozed off, and become insensitive to the pricks of our conscience. Perhaps we even tell ourselves that feeling convicted of sin in our life has to do with the 'law' from which grace has set us free! We need to wake up!
Isn't Jesus the One we declare to be altogether lovely and the One everybody ought to know? Do we know Him so well that there isn't much more that we need to get to know? I am not referring only to the knowledge that comes through study, but also to personal experience. Here we have the most wonderful, interesting, wise and powerful Person in the universe, and we don't have time to get to know Him better!
How is it that when we are in a difficult situation and we seek God we aren't able to hear His voice? Isn't it because we aren't so used to hearing His voice at other times that we are unable to recognise it when we hear it in the midst of many other voices? Even though we are His sheep, we haven't been paying much attention to Him while we were in the green pastures (Jn.10:27).
On the other hand, when we are taken up with many people and things of this earth, don't we realise that they are distracting us from the one thing that we should be seeking after (Lk.10:42)? What was the one thing that Jesus told Mary was needed? That we should sit at His feet and learn from Him - in other words, to get to know Him better.
Things can even become so bad because we have neglected going to Him and sought instead other 'gods' - people and things we value and spend out time for - that when we finally turn to God He closes His ears towards us (Je.2:28).
Most of the world lies in darkness not knowing the One who loves them and has given Himself for them. We pride ourselves in claiming that God has made us His children through His grace. But through our neglect of Him in our daily lives, and the limited time we have for Him in the midst of all our work, 'relaxation,' and other 'unavoidable' commitments we seem to be giving an impression to the world around us that our God is just another philosophical concept! How sad for us!