Now, how do we 'seek the Lord'? It is a metaphorical expression, of
course, which needs to be carefully interpreted in order not to lead us
into a great mistake. We do not seek Him as if He had not sought us, or
was hiding from us. But our search of Him is search after one who is
near every one of us, and who delights in nothing so much as in pouring
Himself into every heart and mind, and will and life, if only heart,
mind, will, life, are willing to accept Him. It is a short search that
the child by her mother's skirts, or her father's side, has to make for
mother or father. It is a shorter search that we have to make for God.
We seek Him by desire. Do you want Him? A great many of us do not. We
seek Him by communion, by turning our thoughts to Him, amidst all the
rush of daily life, and such a turning of thought to Him, which is quite
possible, will prevent our most earnest working upon things material
from descending to the likeness of the lions' fighting for it. We seek
Him by desire, by communion, by obedience. And they who thus seek Him
find Him in the act of seeking Him, just as certainly as if I open my
eye I see the sun, or as if I dilate my lungs the atmosphere rushes into
them. For He is always seeking us. That is a beautiful word of our
Lord's to which we do not always attach all its value, 'The Father
_seeketh_ such to worship Him.' Why put the emphasis upon the 'such,' as
if it was a definition of the only kind of acceptable worship? It is
that. But we might put more emphasis upon the 'seeketh' without spoiling
the logic of the sentence; and thereby we should come nearer the truth
of what God's heart to us is, so that if we do seek Him, we shall surely
find. In this region, and in this region only, there is no search that
is vain, there is no effort that is foiled, there is no desire
unaccomplished, there is no failure possible. We each of us have,
accurately and precisely, as much of God as we desire to have. If there
is only a very little of the Water of Life in our vessels, it is because
we did not care to possess any more. 'Seek, and ye shall find.'
We shall be sure to find everything in God. Look at the grand
confidence, and the utterance of a life's experience in these great
words: 'Shall not want any good.' For God is everything to us, and
everything else is nothing; and it is the presence of God in anything
that makes it truly able to satisfy our desires. Human love, sweet and
precious, dearest and best of all earthly possessions as it is, fails to
fill a heart unless the love grasps God as well as the beloved dying
creature. And so with regard to all other things. They are good when God
is in them, and when they are ours in God. They are nought when wrenched
away from Him. We are sure to find everything in Him, for this is the
very property of that infinite divine nature that is waiting to impart
itself to us, that, like water poured into a vessel, it will take the
shape of the vessel into which it is poured. Whatever is my need, the
one God will supply it all.
You remember the old Rabbinical tradition which speaks a deep truth,
dressed in a fanciful shape. It says that the manna in the wilderness
tasted to every man just what he desired, whatever dainty or nutriment
he most wished; that the manna became like the magic cup in the old
fairy legends, out of which could be poured any precious liquor at the
pleasure of the man who was to drink it. The one God is everything to us
all, anything that we desire, and the thing that we need; Protean in His
manifestations, one in His sufficiency. With Him, as well as in Him, we
are sure to have all that we require. 'Seek ye first the Kingdom ... and
all these things shall be added unto you.'
Let us begin, dear brethren! with seeking, and then our struggling will
not be violent, nor self-willed, nor will it fail. If we begin with
seeking, and have God, be sure that all we need we shall get, and that
what we do not get we do not need. It is hard to believe it when our
vehement wishes go out to something that His serene wisdom does not
send. It is hard to believe it when our bleeding hearts are being
wrenched away from something around which they have clung. But it is
true for all that. And he that can say, 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee,
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee,' will find that
the things which he enjoys in subordination to his one supreme good are
a thousand times more precious when they are regarded as second than
they ever could be when our folly tried to make them first. 'Seek first
the Kingdom,' and be contented that the 'other things' shall be
appendices, additions, over and above the one thing that is needful.
Now, all that is very old-fashioned, threadbare truth. Dear brethren! if
we believed it, and lived by it, 'the peace of God which passes
understanding' would 'keep our hearts and minds.' And, instead of
fighting and losing, and desiring to have and howling out because we
cannot obtain, we should patiently wait before Him, submissively ask,
earnestly seek, immediately find, and always possess and be satisfied
with, the one good for body, soul, and spirit, which is God Himself.
'There be many that cry, Oh! that one would show as any good.' The wise
do not cry to men, but pray to God. 'Lord! lift Thou the light of Thy
countenance upon us.'