Seek and Find

You will seek me
and find me.
When you seek me
with all your heart,
I will be found by you...

Jeremiah 29:13-14a

God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away. This seems to voice a very contemporary viewpoint, after all it addresses the "hiddenness" of God and finding God has posed a challenge for thousands of individuals in the 21st century. However, Meister Eckhart, a German mystic from the 13th century, is credited with these words in answer to the question, Where is God?

Jeremiah also spoke about God’s hiddenness well before the 13th century so it would appear that we are not alone. The question of where is God has been an eternal quandary. Many of us expect God to just show up when needed keeping the action to one side only. It is an expectation that allows us to be sedentary.

What Jeremiah promises and Meister Eckhart understood was that God shows himself to those who actively seek. If we stood motionless in our attempts to find hidden friends during childhood games of hide and seek we would have missed the joy of discovery. It’s a given–one can only find if one first seeks.

God longs to be found and His being found is a concrete promise. In seeking God we may find ourselves led to unexpected places, locations we never imagined, people we never considered. But, if we seek with all our heart, He will not be silent. When we least expect it He will clear his throat, disclosing his position, giving us the joy of discovery.

How will you seek God today?

Jesus, thank you that you
are not a god that stays hidden and silent.
Help me today to seek you, finding you
in the places I least expect.
AMEN.