Pursued or Pursue?

            Today I was pondering why I am not feeling the presence of the Lord as fully as I had been just weeks earlier. I’ve done the “right” things with praying in the spirit, searching the scriptures, worshipping privately and with others as well. It is an empty feeling and I really don’t like it.

I like being pursued. I like hearing Him call my name. I am comforted in visible proof that I have been purposely chosen. By Him. For Him.

Then I realized that maybe it was just my turn. I need to pursue my true love. I need to earnestly seek Him. The Message version of Hebrews 11:6 says,

“It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.”

I am long beyond questioning my beliefs about God’s existence, and frankly, I think I have always known that He loves me enough to respond to me when I come looking. Maybe that is why this rather silent season is so strange and difficult to understand. When He is this quiet, I am left wondering what happened.

I am reminded of those days when my children were very young and would not even allow me a moment of privacy to use the restroom. They needed to know I had not left them. Nothing I did would ever have given them the impression that they would ever be abandoned. They were my life, the very core of my existence, and yet a closed bathroom door seemed like an impenetrable ten-foot barbed wire wall to them.  As soon as the door opened, they would go back to their own play. They didn’t really need me. They just needed to know they had round-the-clock access. Just in case.

Is that what happens when we forget to seek God?  I mean earnestly seek Him. It’s not just reading some Bible verses or singing some praise music. I’m talking seeking His face. The staying-in-prayer-until-He-speaks kind of presence.

Psalm 63:1 says, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

I am parched when I don’t feel Him close to me. I need His flowing rivers of water to literally flood my soul again. I will continue to seek Him until my thirst no longer overwhelms me.

I am guessing that won’t happen until Christ returns.