Found...
🍂
Genesis 3:9 NIV
But the LORD God called to the man,
"Where are you?"
🍂
Today's piece is close to my heart. My prayer is that it speaks to yours as well. So much has been said about seeking God so as to find Him, yet there's a much higher calling. It's time His need is met too. It's time He finds us too. It's time He finds you.
The above scripture was the first question in the entire Bible that God ever asked, and it was directed to the first man He created. This happened when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree of knowledge in the middle of the garden. Adam was too afraid to step out of hiding when He heard the sound of God walking in the garden. He drew back in fear, but God in His love was concerned and decided to "look for him", and so made that first step towards them where they were hiding.
I thought about that question and it got me wondering. Could it be that everything that transpired from that moment onwards in the entire Bible was actually rooted in that very question? Man had lost something so valuable, his position in God. He was chased out of the very garden that he was to co-work with God by tending and keeping it. God seemed to have "lost" the man that He had created to execute His will on the earth. Even Adam's response to God in that moment had nothing to do the question. He said "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." He may not have realized it then, but he did not know where he was. He was lost.
Here's to our big question: Do we seek Him so that we can find Him, or that He may find us? An ideal answer would be both...a win-win kind of deal. We tend to stop at finding Him and forget that He has need of us too. That tells you that the latter is more profitable to the Kingdom, and it is in it that He finds greatest delight. Consider this set of verses:
🍁
Jeremiah 29:12-14NIV
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity.
I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
🍁
Now pay special attention to the order of the events above. It starts by man seeking God earnestly, then God's promise that He will be found, and the climax to it is that these people who had been in exile would be restored to their land. You realize that most of us stop at "finding God", that is, having Him answer our prayers and getting back to the place of intimacy with Him. That should not be the end of it but the beginning. There's so much He would want us to do to execute His will on earth, but first, He'd want to establish us again in 'Eden'. Anyone who desires to be an effective ambassador of Christ in whatever way must first be found...right there...in His Presence.
I'll pull up one more illustration to demonstrate this essence of being lost and found then we'll break it down further.
🌸
Luke.15.17-19NIV
"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!
I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.'
🌸
That's the well-known parable of the lost son. Even before we get to it you realize that right before Jesus told this parable He had told the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. This whole chapter was essentially set apart to open our eyes to see that God really is the one that's concerned about us, more than we are about Him. This is not to degrade Him or make Him the lesser one. The truth is that God remains who He is even without man, but man is nothing without God. God is El-Shaddai, the all-sufficient one. He needs nothing more to add onto who He is because He is already complete.
Well, why then is He the one who searches for us first? Here's what Jesus was actually spelling out in these three parables : the essence of God's Love for humanity, that He would still reach out to ask you and I that same question He asked Adam, "Where are you?"
Even so, there's a role that we are to play in this quest. The lost son in this case made a wilful decision to go to his father. That ideally is the first step,,, "I will set out and go back to my father..." Realize that the father was not lost; he had always been right there, waiting for his son to come home. This here is the posture of seeking God. Note that though he went back to the father, there was something that he had lost. He himself says, "I am no longer worthy to be called your son". This was right after the father ran to him, wrapped his arms round him and kissed him. He had found his father, but deep within him he believed he could not be anything more than a hired servant.
At that point, the identity he ought to embrace as a son was still lost. The most unexpected yet beautiful thing happens right next, when the father sees to it that a feast is prepared to honour the return of his son. It was made crystal-clear that that son right there was not anything less than he was before he was lost. The father even put a ring on the son's finger, as a sign that he had been fully restored. He did not need to consider himself a servant anymore, but a son.
🍂
Luke 15:24 NIV
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
(emphasis mine)
🍂
The greater delight here is not even in the son who finds his way back home, but in the Father who finds his lost son. So, could it be that though we seek God with all our hearts, He is actually the one who is more concerned about finding us? There are many who sought the Lord throughout scripture and found Him, but there are not many whom the Lord found. The few individuals that God found are the ones He used to execute His will on the earth. These are the Bible personalities that left an indelible mark throughout scripture as well as to this very day.
David, for instance, lived a life of seeking God. He acknowledged his desperate need for God and considered God as the most precious thing above all his other great achievements. He wasn't seeking God intermittently, but literally every single day of his life. He himself says,
🍁
Psalms 27:4 NIV
One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.
🍁
Seeking God for him was a lifelong commitment. Even in his most desperate situations he dared not seek another. Elsewhere he says, "You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you...". Now this is not to say that he was the most perfect of all men, but that it was that heart posture that God admired. God Himself testified of him and said,
🌸
Acts 13:22b NKJV
"I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will."
🌸
All these other great men that God called to execute His will on earth all began by being found in the presence of God. The phrase "Here I am" is one you'll find as you study the accounts of people like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel and Isaiah among others. For most of them, those were the first words that came out of their mouths when God first called them. These were people who were found by God. Moses' case I believe is the best illustration for this part,
🍁
Exodus 3:4 NIV
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am."
🍁
🍂God commissions those whom He finds.🍂
Adam lost even the mandate he had been given in the garden of Eden simply because when God called Him and asked where He was , his response was a clear indication that he had lost his position. In other words he could not be found. This is not to make anyone disqualify themselves from being a vessel that God would use to establish His kingdom on earth. In any case, He chooses what is weak to shame the strong, what is foolish to shame the wise, the things that are not to nullify the things that are.
When Jesus was about to be born, there was no guest room available for him. That tells you that Mary and Joseph had been searching for the place that would usher in what God had always desired to bring to the world since the fall of man. The fact that there was no guest room to serve that purpose did not prevent Jesus from being born. A manger was found, and that is where the Messiah lay.
I know I've said this before but I'll say it again. You and I are that manger. Lowly and unfit as it was, it was available. It was found. Jesus is still looking to see who would make room for Him. By this I mean that He is still in the business of looking for you and I. He wants to establish us in our true identity as fellow sons and heirs of God, and through us establish God's kingdom right here on earth.
I don't know whether you get the irony in this. I would do anything just to be with my King and Maker, yet He is the one that almost desperately reaches out to me. He is willing to make the first move. He is willing to pay the cost, even the penalty of death on a cross...
Keenly observe God's frustration in His often futile quest for a willing vessel...
🪷
Luke 9:58 NIV
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
🪷
Ezekiel 22:30 NIV
"I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.
🪷
Are we truly willing to be found by Him? He's still posing that question to us even now, "Where are you?". It is through us that His glory is to fill all the earth. It is through us that He desires to release a mighty revival. It is through us that He wants to answer the prayer, "Thy kingdom come". It is through you.
I only recently discovered that even Jesus had to be in position for God to accomplish His ultimate plan for mankind through Him. The Book of Hebrews largely covers the whole spiritual aspect of Jesus' sacrifice once and for all for our sins. I won't go much into that as it's a whole other mystery but I only want you to take note of this, Jesus' words Himself...
🌹
Hebrews 10:7 NIV
Then I said, "Here I am -
it is written about me in the scroll -
I have come to do your will, my God."
🌹
I don't know about you, but I too desire to be found. I also want to answer and say "Here I am" when He calls. At the end of it all, let it be said of us as well, that God looked for a man, and He found us. He found you. Anytime there's another proceeding in heaven, like the case of Isaiah, it is my prayer that this will be our testimony,
🍂
Isaiah 6:8 NIV
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
"Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
🍂
I found a beautiful song that captures it all so well and makes every word alive ♥️🥺🤧. Let that song be our prayer, that we will be found of God. Here you go!!
Comments
Post a Comment