Seek Him

You will find Him when you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul.

Deuteronomy 4:29

So I have been gone for a little while. I was on a mission trip with my yourth group last week, and I didn't post for a few days before either. I am back now though, and hopefully back on track.

Today's devotional talks about how we spend our time. The writer talks about an exercise that she had to do in her workplace where they had to keep track of and account for every minute of their time for a few weeks. She was glad when it was over, but it made her wonder about how she spent her time at home. So she started keeping track of her time at home, time spent cleaning, doing laundry, watching tv, surfing the internet, etc. She was shocked at how much time was spent on things like tv and internet, in comparison to how much time was spent on bible reading and prayer time.

I think we would all be a little shocked to find out exactly where our time is going. While the writer talks about how there is nothing wrong with watching tv, and playing games on the internet, it can get in the way of our spending sufficent time seeking our Saviour. She goes on to say that if we are seeking anything or anyone else with greater fervancy then we seek after the Lord, we are guilty of idolatry.

Last week, I spent most of the week seeking the face of God. I was on a mission trip in Cincinnati. And although every minute was filled with something to do, it was also focused and geared around worshiping and focusing on God. I had a difficult start to my week with a couple of the youth on my crew. I found myself praying everytime eyes were rolled at me, or I heard sighs or glares were thrown my way. By the end of the first workday, I was very frustrated and at the end of my rope. I talked the situation over with my husband, and I prayed about it. I truly felt like God wanted me to wait and see what happened the next day. And then if I had problems with these youth again, I was going to take them on a walk and talk to them. However, the next day went much better, and the next even better.

I was in an environment where I was fully focused on God, and was able to hear what he had to say to me. Now I am back to reality. I always try to bring what I learn on mission trips home with me. I am especially trying this year. Satan is on the attack. He has come at my husband and me with everything he has lately. But he is in for a fight! We have strapped on our armor, and we are ready to take him on.

Bottom line is I think we tend to seek God more when we are feeling Satan attack us, when we should be seeking Him every day. I don't know about you, but I know that I can't make it without His perfect wisdom, strength and guidance each and every day.

Steps of Faith:
Father, please forgive me for letting anything or anyone take the place that rightfully belongs to You. Give me the grace to make You my first priority always.

Deeper Walk:
Deuteronomy 4:15-40 NAS

So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as today. Now the Lord was angry with me on your account, and swore that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. For I will die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this good land. So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form on anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. When you become the father of children and children's children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you. There you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him. Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great pwoer, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.