The Seekers Heart

A few months ago, I wrote my latest blog (let's not talk about the inconsistencies in my posting) called "Deeper Waters", which was in essence about wading into greater depths in God. Now, I'm not here to repeat the message of that post, but rather to continue the conversation. If you have ever stepped foot into a Christian church or even have just seen clips of Christian content online, I'm positive you have heard someone somewhere yelling at you about "going deep in God" or a young adult expressing how they want to "go deeper in God" and this is all very good, until it just becomes elevator music in the background of our lives.

I want to continue with where I left off last time simply because Psalm 107: 23-24 has continued to play my heart strings and others like it have been a stunning accompaniment. But my love for these scriptures doesn't just stop at slapping them on a piece of clothing as a graphic or writing them in my Instagram bio, rather they are really becoming true for me. Like, really, really true and I just want to bring you in.

• Psalm 107:23-24 Those who go down to the sea in ships, and do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.

  
  

I won't assume that I know who is on the other side of my computer screen reading this, so I will speak for myself. Having literally grown up in church the Word of God has always been around me, either being preached, read or sung and I can honestly say that I have loved God from early on, even in my naivety as a child (or perhaps I loved the idea of God). I also knew Jesus loved me but was COMPLETELY unaware of His love for me at the exact same time. When I sang "Jesus Loves Me" with the rest of the kids, what I now know that I meant then was that Jesus loves all seven billion plus of us in the world the way that someone loves a refreshing glass of strawberry lemonade on a scorching summer day. Sure, they love the strawberries on their own and lemons and the mint (a little carbonated water if your fancy), but the big picture is all of the ingredients combined. Not to mention the added sugar which just gives all the ingredients a little face-lift and the heat which makes the lemonade more desirable in the moment. So, to put it plainly I believed that Jesus loved me with only a big picture kind of love, and not with a love that is singular, focused, fixed upon one. So singularly focused, in fact that the very of hairs on my head are all numbered apparently (Luke 12:7) and seeing that all of my individual strands are intertwined into locs is pretty astounding.

The reason for the excerpt from my history of my poor view of the love of God toward me is because I want to further invite you into how that shaped how I saw and read the scriptures. While I was a very "good girl" growing up, the misunderstanding of God's love for me inevitably impacted my faith, how I identified myself and how poorly I esteemed others. Because I didn't really believe in the Father's love for me, Morgan, the individual, naturally I didn't really believe that His Word applied to me. For all I knew, I was merely an audience member quickly fading into the shadows, watching the Lord bless others, only hoping that one day the Master will see me and grant me His love too, though I would have settled for a rushed autograph (sad but true).

So when Jesus said "...but seek first the Kingdom of God and all His righteousness and all these things shall be added" in Matthew 6:33 or when the Father said "you will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all of your heart" in Jeremiah 29:13 or when He said "I did not say to the seed of Jacob, 'seek Me in vain'" in Isaiah 45:19 (one of my favorites), and again in Proverbs 8:17 "...and those who seek me diligently will find me.", it meant nothing to me, until suddenly it meant everything.

For years life was just one big meaningless routine framed by good works. And what's worse is that I was somehow convinced that my boredom meant that I must need a vacation, or a nice expensive meal, or to sit on the couch stuffing my face with processed sugar while I watched a movie with a graphic adult scene portrayed shortly after the opening credits. Now, while I will probably never pass up the opportunity for a vacation, or a cozy bowl of ramen with a side of bao buns (I could do without the candy and the movie), my point is that I reduced the answer to my life's monotony to mere dopamine hits and that costed me. It costed me years of not knowing the true Jesus-and consequently not knowing myself-until just eight months ago (give or take). If I could go back and change anything, I would have believed in the Father's love for me, Morgan Dallas much sooner. I would have been grateful for my understanding of His love for the world, for that guy over there, or for that girl in my class, but I would have embraced Jesus' sacrifice for myself much, much sooner.

But now that we're here, I am both ecstatic and trembling because just in these past few months His words are truer than they've ever been. Now when He says to "seek Me and you will find me if you search for me with all of your heart", I can feel the weight of the responsibility that I have to respond. We AAAAAAALLLLLL have the same opportunity to simply respond. We may not all have the same luxuries as others, or the same resources, or the same upbringing, but we all have the same opportunity and privilege to seek Jesus with everything that we have at this very moment, even if what we have is not much right now, just ask the woman with the two mites in Luke 21. And what each of us does with that opportunity will absolutely be accounted for. For that, you can ask the man who buried his one talent given to him by his master in Matthew 25.

At the end and the beginning of the day, Jesus was talking to you too, the one who knows the ins and outs of church like the back of their hand, the one who is just hearing about this for the first time, and the one somewhere in the middle. The command to seek God is not just for those in vocational ministry while the rest of us sit back and watch as they seek God with all that they have and receive their reward. It's for you and me. There will be deeper waters to wade and deeper wells to dig all the days of our lives. The Lord has so much more to say than what we hear in a twenty second clip that makes us nod in agreement with but that we immediately forget once we're scrolling to the next deep clip. He is so much more captivating than a token that we sit on that already cluttered bookshelf ready to collect dust in a matter of minutes. He is so much more alive than that twenty-eight dollar wooden cross that you purchased from Hobby Lobby that you've been meaning to mount. He absolutely wants more from us. More than our hum-drum routines and the quick little prayers we blurt out before eating our artery clogging meals (I'm yelling at myself).

There's this little rhythm I've discovered in God recently, and it's that the more I search the scriptures and seek the Father in prayer, the more I see. The more I see, the hungrier I get. The more my appetite increases, the bolder and more courageous I become in order to step out even further. The further I venture out, the narrower the path before me becomes. The narrower the path gets, the more I tailor my life to be able to endure this lifelong trek. And the more I tailor my life, the less appealing things that I once readily consumed with no consideration are. Even the desires I've had since I was a little girl have started to change colors. It doesn't take much, just to start.

Proverbs 27:7 The satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but the hungry soul calls bitter things sweet.

Thanks for making it to the end reader. Til next month.

Love,

Morgan