He Will Let us Find Him if we Look for Him

Humility and pride are such opposites: and their effects in our lives are so different!  Have you ever noticed that when you decide to let go of some worry or concern and give it to God that you are suddenly free inside?  But on the other hand, if you have to ‘own’ a situation or a position, it comes with a lot of work and anxiety.  Well, I am slowly going through Isaiah, and God is reminding us of Who He is.  He does this, because of our ignorance.  Our self-sufficiency.  Our complacency.  At least, that is what I found in my own life: I was all those things until that day back in November 2017 when I started reading my Bible. I suddenly realized that I did not know the God of the Bible or His Son Jesus.  I would have said that I did, that I believed when I was a little girl, but it was not changing me!  You would not have known that I was a Christian by the way I was living.  

But before I can really understand who I am, I need to look at who God is: ‘I am the Lord, apart from me there is no God.  I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me.  I am the Lord and there is no other.  I form the light and create darkness.  I bring prosperity and create disaster.  I, the Lord, do all these things.’ (Isaiah 45:5-7).  So, before we say ‘Wait, you create disaster? That does not seem fair.’  This is exactly the position that our enemy delights in!  It trapped me in this lie: ‘God is not for me He is against me.’ So, I viewed God with resentment and suspicion I am sorry to say!  But not now!  I only started reading my Bible as a ‘last resort’ but it was His kindness that I began to see in my life, in spite of my sin, that gave me the desire to know Him and to choose the things that honor Him.  So, this began to be my prayer that I pray almost daily: ‘God, YOU are God!  You are good! You are for me: you are not against me.’

So, today in Isaiah, with my newly discovered awe of God, I read this:  God is speaking to us and says: ‘I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’  I the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right.’  (Isaiah 45:19).  So, when I read this for the first time, I got the chills. Because it is true. That is exactly what happened to me when I started looking for God, He drew near to me and let me discover Him!  In my case, I looked for God after a season of hurt and disappoint that led to my doing pretty much whatever I wanted.  No thought of others.  Just myself.  I fell apart at a time in my life when I ‘should have known better’ so the enemy was extra hard on me to keep me from accepting God’s forgiveness.  But as I stay in the word now, I realized that I am not the only one who sinned when they’ should have known better’. It is comforting to me and I hope it is to you too.

We have a Maker.  A Creator.  We did not create ourselves, our families, our lives.  It was all given to us.  Well, it was loaned to us. And we can live one of two ways.  In pride and self-sufficiency, without regard for our Maker, or, in humility and gratefulness for the things He has given us to use and for what He is doing in our hearts.  We can kneel before our Maker willingly now, and be forgiven, and live forever with God, or; we will kneel unwillingly one day, but it will happen:  ‘Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God and there is no other.  By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.  They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.’  All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.  But in the Lord all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.’ (Isaiah 45:22-25).  Side note:  I used to get hung up on the fact that I am technically not a descendant of Israel.  But I discovered this after I read my whole Bible: when I turn to Jesus for forgiveness, I am adopted into the family.  Loved, secure, now a part of the family!  In Romans, speaking about Abraham it says: ‘So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.  And he is also the father of the circumcised, who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.’ (Romans 4:11b, 12).  I am a child of Abraham because of faith!  And so are you if you believe what God says is true.  There is so much freedom and joy in honoring God now: it is counter intuitive, though, exactly the opposite of what our ‘logical’ minds expect.  So, if we step out in faith and seek God, He promises to let us find Him.  And when I began to do that, my entire life got better.  Yours will too.