Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 Therefore I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.
8 My soul follows hard after you; your right hand upholds me.
Review
Step 1 in learning to love God is to resolve to prefer God over this world, after having counted the cost. Another step was hungering and thirsting for God - longing for mystical fellowship with God through direct experiences of His attributes. The effort to fulfill that longing is called “seeking.”
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you
Seeking God should be a joyful, fulfilling process. Where there is little joy and little satisfaction of the thirst of the soul, there are at least three possibilities: Lack of faith (your soul is not really convinced that God’s oceans of delight will be enough to fill up your teaspoon of need), seeking that does not really have God as its object (seeking God means seeking His face; His favorable presence or smile, which is a relational seeking that works to erase the distance created by sin, neglect or ignorance) and lack of earnestness.
Seeking God requires earnestness: Be on fire for God in your prayer closet.
Earnestly I seek you.
The promises of success when it comes to seeking God are almost always accompanied by the condition that we seek earnestly.
Jer.29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Dt.4:29 if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Ps.119:2 Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.
10 I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.
Seeking God is hard. Unless it is done eagerly with all your heart and all your soul, it does not work. Most Christians understand that zeal is required in serving God. When I was in high school we used to always talk about being on fire for God. But usually we thought of that in terms of serving Him, not seeking Him. We want pastors to be passionate when they preach. We want musicians to have passion when they sing. But more important than that is for you to have passion in your devotions, when you are seeking the presence of God. The most important place to be on fire for God is in your prayer closet.
This is not merely an Old Testament idea. We have much greater and more intimate knowledge of God and closeness to Him now than they did in the Old Testament, but that does not mean seeking God is no longer important or that it is no longer difficult. The New Testament affirms that we must still seek Him, and that we must still seek Him earnestly.
Heb.11:6 anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
One advantage we have over Old Testament saints is that we now have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus. Furthermore, we have a great High Priest now over the whole house of God – the Lord Jesus Christ. So what conclusion should we draw? Does that mean we no longer need to put forth any effort to seek nearness to God? Does our standing in Christ and free access to the Most Holy Place mean we are so near to God that there is no longer a need for any seeking or effort to draw close to Him? No – just the opposite.
Heb.10:19-22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God
James 4:7-8 Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Notice the way David described his pursuit of God down in v.8. My soul clings to you. The word translated “clings” is DAVAK, and it is the word translated “cleave” in the KJV in Gn.2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. That word cleave refers to a very close union – like being glued together. That is the word translated clings in v.8. It means to stick to something. It is the word used to describe what happened to Eleazar’s hand when he defended the field all by himself against the Philistines.
2 Samuel 23:10 but he stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword.
It is usually used of objects that are stuck together or attached in some way. When it is used of people instead of things, it carries the idea of love and loyalty – as in Gn.2:24.
2 Sam.20:2 So all the men of Israel deserted David to follow Sheba son of Bicri. But the men of Judah stayed with their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem.
While others were deserting, the loyal ones who loved him stuck by him. David knew what it was like to have his men stick to him – remain devoted to him in love while others were deserting. And so in this psalm he says, “That is why my soul does toward God. It is stuck to Him.”
Dt.13:4 It is the LORD your God you must follow after, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and cling to him.
2 Kings 18:5 Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the LORD and did not cease to follow after him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses.
It is a statement of loyalty and love – but not just loyalty and love. It is also a statement of seeking and pursuing hard after God. The NIV says “clings to” but the next word in the Hebrew is not “to.” It is AHAR, which means behind or after. So what does it mean to cling after or cling behind? I looked up all the times these two Hebrew words (DAVAK AHAR to cling after) are used together and I found that the phrase occurs 6 times in the Old Testament – here in Ps.63:8 and 5 other places.
Gn.31:23 he pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him
Jdg.20:45 As they turned and fled toward the desert to the rock of Rimmon, the Israelites cut down five thousand men along the roads. They kept pressing after the Benjamites as far as Gidom and struck down two thousand more.
1 Sam.14:22 When all the Israelites who had hidden in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were on the run, they joined the battle in hot pursuit.
1 Chrn.10:2 The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons
Jer.42:16 then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow you into Egypt, and there you will die.
So the phrase to cling after always means to follow hard after someone in hot pursuit. That is why the KJV translates the sentence: My soul followeth hard after thee. This is quite a choice of words David used. This is the only place in the whole Bible where this phrase is used in a positive way. Usually it means to pursue in battle. David says, “God, my soul dogs Your steps in relentless pursuit.” In Ps.63:8, then, David is saying essentially the same thing he said in v.1.
v.1 Earnestly I seek you
v.8 my soul follows hard after you and clings to you.
To seek God successfully, then, the seeking has to be earnest which means there must be a great deal of motivation. That is why the thirst-intensifying effect of suffering is so important. When the Prodigal son was hungry he wanted some of the pig slop. But when he was starving it drove him back to his father’s table. Or as one writer put it, when you pray, you have to pull the bow all the way back for the arrow to reach heaven.
From now until the end of this study we will be learning how to seek God. You can take a marker and write “Void” across all the lessons that follow if you apply the principles in those lessons but not earnestly with all your heart and all your soul. Seeking God is not really seeking unless it is whole-hearted and earnest. None of the principles and promises about seeking God that we are going to cover will apply to you if you are a casual seeker. That is why intensifying your thirst is so important.
Everything you ever do to seek God – when you do it, just ask yourself, “What is earnest about this? Is there any conceivable way what I’m doing right now could be called seeking God with all my heart and all my soul?”
God requires earnestness because He is jealous and because He is great
If the experience of God’s presence is so good for us, why does He not make it a easier to experience? I would suggest at least two reasons. One is because God is a jealous God. He is a husband who wants His wife’s whole heart. That is why He said you can not serve two masters in Mt.6:24. You are going to seek something in life – some source of joy and satisfaction - and so any part of you that is not seeking God is seeking something else. Halfhearted worship does not interest God - just as a woman usually turn down a man who gets down on one knee and says, “Will you please be my wife on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays?” Just like your husband is not interested in sharing your affections with another man.
Another reason is that God is a great and glorious king, and He will not be dishonored by halfhearted devotion. It would bring dishonor to God if He allowed Himself to be found by those who sought Him half-heartedly. A god like that would hardly be worth worshipping. Who would want to worship a god who put himself into a gumball machine, so that anyone who was willing to part with a penny could have him at his beck and call? God is a great, sovereign king. He is the Almighty, and His presence is holy and sacred, and it is not available to the profane heart. In Mal.1 God rebukes the priests in Israel, who were serving God and offering sacrifices (which was their God-given job). Even though they were in the Temple serving Him, God rebukes them harshly because of their attitude and lack of earnestness. Their attitude made their seeking detestable to God, and He rejected their worship.
Mal.1:6b "It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. "But you ask, 'How have we shown contempt for your name?'
Evidently it is possible to have contempt for God while worshipping Him and serving Him in ministry and not even know it. No doubt the priests would have been shocked at these words. They had devoted their lives to the work of the ministry and now they are being accused of having contempt for God’s name.
10 "Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands. 11 My name will be great among the nations … 12 "But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, 'It is defiled,' and of its food, 'It is contemptible.'
Most likely, these priests did not consciously think that the Lord’s table was defiled. If anyone asked them if the Lord’s table was defiled, no doubt they would have been shocked at the question and have said, “Of course not!” But God goes on to show them how they were, in effect, saying exactly that:
13 you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it [the Lord’s table] contemptuously," says the LORD Almighty.
The Lord’s table is the privilege of worship and ministry. Worshipping God and doing ministry for the Lord is the opportunity to enjoy fellowship with Him, and fellowship with Him is described in Scripture as enjoying a great feast where God Himself is the food. When you do something to serve God, whether it be preaching a sermon or picking up a scrap of paper off the floor at church, if it is something you are doing in service of the Almighty, that is like partaking of a feast at the Lord’s table.
Think of ministry like one of the chairs at the banquet table. Just sitting in the chair (just doing a ministry in His name) does not necessarily mean you are partaking of the feast. What God wants from you is not so much to sit in one of the chairs at His table, but to partake of the banquet. And not just to partake of it, but to joyfully feast.
These priests were doing ministry but in their heart they were saying, “What a burden this is.” They sat there at the table sniffed contemptuously at the food. Think of how often we are like those priests. We think God must be pleased with us, because we are doing so much ministry. We sit down in chair after chair at the banquet. And we paint on a smile at church, but if anyone could see into our hearts and observe our attitudes they would see a disposition that often says, “What a burden.”
What a dishonor to God! God would prefer that the doors of His house be closed and locked than to receive “service” with that kind of attitude, because He is a great king and His name will be great among the nations, and He will not be dishonored with servants who have that kind of attitude. What a sin it is to fail to love ministry and worship! And yet think of how many of us have been guilty of showing up to God’s feast and acting just like these priests – walking up to the food God has laid out and sniffing at it contemptuously.
“sniff, sniff” – “I don’t like the smell of this song we are singing.”
“sniff, sniff – I don’t like the way they run the nursery or do the announcements.”
God gives us an opportunity to do the unthinkable – to actually serve in the courts of the Almighty Himself! To serve God, the Great King! and we respond, “Sniff, sniff – No thanks.” And the ministries we are doing just cause irritation in our hearts: No one appreciates what I’m doing. No one is helping me. I have labored and labored at this for soooo long. I have worked my fingers to the bone. This is so hard. What a burden. The time comes for your devotions or your daily prayer time or devotions, and you do not say it – you do not even think the words - but the attitude of your heart and your affections are “What a burden.” You open your Bible to study it, “Sniff sniff – I don’t know if I’m going to like this.” God prefers no seeking at all to that kind of seeking. God wants you to delight in seeking Him.
Ps.37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD
Neh.1:11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer … of your servants who delight in revering your name.
Ps.1:1-2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked … 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD
Ps.112:1 Blessed is the man … who finds great delight in his commands.
Isa.58 is a fascinating chapter where God rebukes the people for doing as they pleased on the Sabbath. That was wrong and sinful – God did not want them to do as they pleased on that day. What did He want them to do instead?
Isa.58:13-14 "If you keep your feet from … doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."
“Do not do as you please. Instead, call the Sabbath a delight.” God was not satisfied with them just refraining from doing what the natural impulses of their flesh desired. It is not enough to just refrain but to be wishing you were doing something else. God required that they take delight in the Sabbath. Unless it was a delight to them, they were in disobedience. God rebuked the people in Amos 8 for the same thing.
Amos 8:4,5 Here this, you who say… "When will the New Moon be over … and the Sabbath be ended?"
The attitude in their hearts was, “When will the Lord’s day be over so we can get back to what we would rather be doing?” Try that on your wife. “When will this date ever be over? How much more time do I have to spend with you?” Ask her that, and I think the answer will be, “None!” Because love and desire do not have that attitude.
It is so east to fall into complaining mode about the church. The problem I have found in all the churches I have ever joined is that they are imperfect and they are run by a bunch of imperfect leaders. It is so easy to get down on the church, even though it is the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, and the dwelling place of God.
So it is not enough to serve God. You have to delight in it and derive great joy from it. Otherwise don’t bother, because God threatens horrific judgment on those who will not happily serve Him.
Dt.28:47-48 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, 48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
When you seek God, but find there is no burning, passionate desire arising from both your emotions and your volition, the result is a tepid, nauseating, dishonoring kind of service. Notice what those priests in Mal.1 were offering.
Mal.1:13-14 "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the LORD. 14 "Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king," says the LORD
He is a great King; His name will be honored among the nations, and He will not accept the kinds of half-baked, half-hearted service that arises when we seek Him with a low level of earnestness. So if that is the way you have been seeking Him, it is no wonder that your times of seeking God are not your favorite times of the day, and that your life is not full of exuberant joy and contentment and love and zeal and awe; because all your seeking has been a dead end. It has not resulted in all those wonderful fruits that come from being in God’s presence, because you have not been in His presence much because your seeking is not earnest. God will not have His name dishonored by that kind of seeking from His people.
Earnestness comes from Emotion
Clearly, then, earnestness is connected to emotion. Throughout the psalms, earnestness is seen as coming mostly from the way the psalmist feels. Thirst is more an issue of the way you feel than it is an issue of commitment or resolve. The psalmists’ prayers were just like our prayers – the more intense the pain or the more full the joy, the more earnest the prayers.
That is exactly what we see in this psalm – David’s motivation comes from the way he feels both in the positive and negative directions. From v.1 you see his intense suffering driving his earnestness in seeking God. And from vv.2,3 you see the joy of anticipation pulling on David’s emotions and generating earnestness. The pain of his suffering is pushing him upward toward God, and the joy of anticipation is pulling him heavenward.
Col.3 calls us to set our hearts on things above, but this world can have such a magnetic pull on our attention that it is like our hearts weigh 1000 lbs. And we try to lift up our hearts to heaven and we barely get an inch off the ground before some earthly distraction pulls our thinking and affections right back down to this earth. Sometimes it feels as though your soul is nailed to the floor. The only way we will every be able to rise up to commune with God is if we have the powerful drive of thirst being pushed from behind by suffering and being pulled from above by hope. We are in the ditch of this world, and to get out we need both front and rear wheel drive.
And both the push from suffering and the pull from hope are driven and powered not just by commitment and resolve, but by emotion. Knowing about a need might generate some level of intensity, but not like feeling does. For years I knew caffeine was bad for me, but that had very little impact on my consumption of Dr. Pepper. Then, a few years ago, I got a stomach problem that was aggravated by caffeine. So if I drank a can of pop, I would have a very intense pain in my stomach that would last for days or weeks. Guess how long it took me to get completely off of all caffeine? It was instantaneous. If a doctor tells you you are not getting enough water, will you drink water when you’re not thirsty? Yes, but not with the gusto you have when you are dying of thirst. It is emotion and feeling that drives earnestness.
The caffeine and water illustrations are negative, but it works on the positive side too. The feelings of pain and suffering get us moving, but the desire for pleasure, delight and satisfaction are also powerful motivators. Think of the ridiculous extremes you went to to impress the first person you were ever infatuated with. Think of the extremes you would go to to have an experience of that person’s love. Think of the things you would sacrifice to be with that person, or, in some cases, to even catch a glimpse of that person. Where did that level of earnestness come from? Emotion. Discipline can generate some earnestness, but nothing like emotion. Pain and pleasure are what fuel earnestness.
This is why you need to taste and see that the Lord is good. No one follows hard after an unknown good. No matter how wonderful something is, it can not be the object of desire until it has been experienced. So seeking God successfully requires earnestness; and earnestness comes mostly from emotion.
This is Possible
At this point you may be thinking, “This requires something that is a million miles out of my reach. It is impossible. I could never seek God with all my heart and all my soul.”
Dt.30:10-14 turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
This is something you can do by God’s grace! We know it is possible, because it has been done.
2 Chrn.15:2 If you seek him, he will be found by you
4 But in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them… They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them.
12 They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul.
If you find yourself tempted to think you will not be able to do this, look again at Ps.63:8
My soul follows hard after you. Your right hand upholds me.
If God has the heart of a father toward you, and He sees you stumbling because it is so hard, is there any doubt in your mind that His great heart will be flooded with compassion and He will reach back and uphold you with His mighty right hand? The following is and excerpt from my prayer journal when I was praying through this verse.
Many of the things I thought were hard followings after You really were not. I followed hard after study and after getting work done for You, but I fear a lot of that wasn’t really following hard after YOU. Lord, I really do feel like that has at least been corrected now. The problem is, now that I’m following You instead of something else, the “hard” seems to have dropped out. I feel I’m following weak after You. Better to follow weak after You than to follow hard after something else; but Lord now let me follow hard after You. Let the desires of my heart for fellowship with You become so strong they cause me to persist, and to keep pressing after You with all of my heart and all of my soul and all of my strength until I “overtake” You and find fellowship with You. I know You love me with the love of a Father. Lord, if I were moving through some rough terrain, and my little son were trying to follow hard after me, but he was stumbling and faltering, I would reach back with my right hand and grasp him and pull him up. What a wonderful thing You’ve placed in the second part of this verse, Lord! You take hold of me with Your right hand. On the other hand, while I would help him if he were stumbling and faltering while following hard after me, if he was not even really trying – if he was mostly interested in following after someone else – someone I despised, how that would grieve me. Lord, if I struggle let it be because of the rough terrain as I follow hard after You and not because of disinterest, laziness or affection for other loves.
If I lack earnestness in my seeking God, the solution is not to just resolve to step up my efforts. I should resolve to do that, but that alone will not be enough. To solve the problem I have to intensify my love for God and my desire for Him. If you feel convicted about the lack of earnestness in your seeking after God I hope you do not respond mostly just by feeling guilty and beating up on yourself. Do not just hear this and say, “Wow, I need to watch my mouth and make sure I never complain about ministry.” Do not focus mainly on the symptom – let the symptom alert you to the disease. If you cough into a Kleenex and look down and see a bunch of blood, you do not just walk away and say, “Wow, I’m such a bad cougher.” You get alarmed enough about what kind of disease you might have that you schedule a doctor visit immediately. Do not look at your lack of earnestness and say, “Wow, I have got to try harder.” Look at your lack of earnestness and say, “Wow, I have got to taste more of the goodness of God. I have got to intensify my thirst and hunger. I have got to find a way to love Him more passionately.” If you do not have the emotion to drive you to earnest, full-hearted seeking, the solution is not to just be content with an imitation earnestness that comes from commitment and resolve alone. The solution is to find out why your heart is not white-hot with passionate love for God, and to do whatever it takes to get that earnest love. Then the earnestness of seeking will be possible.
How to increase earnestness
So how do we make progress in this area? This entire study is an answer to that question, but for now I will just mention two things that are related to this week’s lesson. If you want the fire to burn hot in your heart for God, try doing these two things: Fan the embers into flame and keep stoking the fire instead of letting it go out all the time.
Fan into flame the love you already have
Have you ever noticed how much David and the other psalmists make of what is in their hearts toward God? Most Christians focus on what is bad in their hearts, but do not make much of what is good. David made much of what was good. That is important, because emotions tend to grow when we pay attention to them. If you are distressed at all over your lack of earnestness and passion, that very distress should be an encouragement to you, because it is not natural. If you are distressed because of the weakness of your love, that means there is some love there – otherwise the weakness of it would not bother you. So fan into flame whatever love is there.
2 Tim.1:6 I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God
The word translated “fan into flame” means to rekindle or resuscitate a fire – to get it going again. The idea is that there was a fire previously, and so there are still coals. If you still have hot coals, all you have to do is put a few dry twigs on those coals, blow on it a little bit, and it will burst into flame. So the principle is to take something that is there but that is barely there, and capitalize on it and exploit it and help it along to build it into something bigger.
Paul primarily had in mind Timothy’s preaching gifts, but I know no reason why the principle would not apply to any gift we get from God, especially love. When you feel a sensation of emotion – any of the emotions Scripture says are results of the favorable presence of God (like joy, encouragement, awe, rest, peace, gladness, courage, etc.), do not just ignore the fact that you feel that way. Most of us feel that way and just write it off as a good mood, and think little of it. We might even attribute it to a good night’s sleep, or some event that has taken place. And if you are like me, you feel things like that in such tiny little measures they barely even register in your mind. You give it no thought at all, and a few minutes later it is gone. It dies out like a coal cooling off in the night air.
Or maybe you even dump cold water on it and really put it out for good by fretting over the fact that it is not a raging fire. You feel a tiny little sensation of joy, or awe or peace, and you fret over the fact that it is not a much greater sensation. And so now there is no joy at all. The coal is completely extinguished.
Either way – whether you douse it with water or just let it cool off by ignoring it – it goes out. The goal is to not let it go out, but to fan it into a big, hot flame.
For one of my biblical counseling classes I had to read some books on sexual problems in marriage. One very common problem is when one partner has much more desire than the other partner. One book I read suggested for the low-desire spouse to take advantage of little, tiny tinges of interest or arousal. When there is some subtle thought or desire, instead of doing what they normally do and just ignore it, they should think about it and make much of it in their mind so that it starts to grow. That author is simply applying the 2 Tim.1:6 principle to marital love. I think the principle works with all kinds of love, including love for God and enjoyment of God.
We must fan into flame the love that is there. Do not let it die out by neglect. Remember the parable of the talents. Whether God has given you a lot or a little, you need to be faithful to make the most of it. Capitalize on the little bit you do have and make it grow. Keep stoking the fire
So the first way to intensify your love for God is to fan into flame the little embers that are already there. The second principle is, once the fire is going a little bit – keep stoking it. David’s soul was in constant, hot pursuit of God. If you are chasing a retreating army and you run after them for two hours every Sunday morning, or for a few minutes twice a day, you are not going to gain much ground on them. The very idea of hot pursuit implies a certain amount of constancy.
Look at v.6 I think of you through the watches of the night. David’s pursuit of God was constant – day and night. What happens if you go camping and throw sticks on the fire once a week? You just get a pile of sticks. Stoking the fire once a week will not keep it going. Stoking the fire once or twice a day will not keep it going either. Fellowship with God needs to be as continual as we can make it. If your earnest pursuit of God is just once or twice a day when you have your devotions, it will not be fruitful. Letting your soul warm up to God is like getting a tan from the sun – 5 minutes in the sun a couple times a day does not do anything.
Ps 25:5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Ps 119:97 Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
Ps 89:15-16 Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD. 16 They rejoice in your name all day long
God is offering you fellowship all day long.
Isa 65:2 All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people
If He holds out His hands all day long to a disobedient, obstinate people who have turned away from Him, how much more do you think He holds out His hands to His own dear children?
Ps 71:8 My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long.
I made the point in the last lesson you can not consciously be thinking about God every second of the day. It is impossible. God does not even want you to do that. He wants you do pay attention to your work when you need to, and to pay attention to the people who are talking to you, etc. But on the other hand, you are not having fellowship with God just because you are doing His work. During those moments when you are not consciously paying attention to Him, there is a degree to which the directness of your fellowship is broken off. It is not cut off completely, but it is to some degree. If paying conscious attention to Him means anything, then not paying attention to Him must also mean something. Remember, we are seeking the smile of God, and smiles only have their effect if you see them.
There have to be increments of time in between our conscious fellowship with God. Those increments of time are proper and good and are by God’s design. Even Jesus had them, which is why He sought solitude for prayer many times. The increments have to exist. The question is, how long should they be? They have to be longer than 1 second, because you can not distract yourself from your work every second when you are doing something that requires concentration. But on the other hand, is it possible for them to get too long? For example, if you went 20 years in between times of paying close attention to God, that increment would be too long. So the intervals of time between conscious fellowship with Christ can not be too short, nor should they be too long. So what is the right length? How do you know if yours are too long?
Let me suggest two measuring sticks. First, your times of paying attention to God and enjoying His presence should be frequent enough that you can say, with the psalmists, that you are doing it all day long. Think of the last time something was on your mind all day long. How frequently did you think of that thing that day?
Another measure that I find a little more helpful is this – just look at the results in your life. Think about the results that come from being in the presence of God – joy, contentment, peace, encouragement, strengthening, reverence, comfort, courage, hope, happiness, etc. and ask yourself, “How full is my heart of those things as a direct result of the frequency with which I enjoy the Lord’s presence and commune with Him? If any of that is lacking, the goal should be to shorten up those intervals.
When I was a small child very few things were more exciting to me than when my grandparents would come visit. They always brought me a gift, and I loved it when they came. I do not have very many clear memories of my childhood, but that is one thing I can remember very clearly – the way I felt all day when I knew they were coming. I would be so excited about it that I would be in a good mood all day long. I thought about it and gained happiness from it all day long. Does that mean there were no moments during the day when I was not thinking about their arrival? Of course not. There were plenty of times when I had to concentrate on some schoolwork or whatever, but every time there was a free minute – every time I looked up at the clock, their coming was back on my mind and back to causing joy in my heart. The increments of time between thinking about them were so small that the joy continued during those increments. The intervals were never long enough to allow the joy to fade.
You do not have to put sticks in a fire every second to keep it going. If you enjoy fellowship with God often enough, the joy that results will continue to burn even through the increments of time between times of fellowship. But if those intervals get too long, the fire will die out, and you will have to restart it again from scratch.
So take advantage of all the transitions in your day. When you finish one task, before jumping right in to the next, take a moment to enjoy the presence of God. Fix your attention on at least one of His attributes and at least one of His promises, and just sit back for a few seconds and enjoy being the child of such a God. Remind yourself of His literal presence there with You. Do not just think about Him – pay attention to Him in a relational way. Then think through how your next task in your day fits into your fellowship with Him. Ask Him for help in the warfare, and then move ahead with the task.
Reminder Cards
Below is a two-sided sheet that you can print out and make photocopies. Each sheet has 8 cards. The purpose is to make yourself a supply of these cards so you can use one every day. When you have your morning time with the Lord, take the passage of Scripture you focused on and pinpoint what attributes of God are highlighted in that text, and write those in the first space.
The next line says, “Promises to trust:” Write any stated or implied promises from that text on which your soul can rest and find delight (because trusting Him is the greatest and most profound act of fellowship).
The next line says, “What will result if I experience this attribute today:” and below that I have listed about 40 of the things Scripture says are results of experiencing the presence of God (joy, encouragement, awe, contentment, etc.). Look through that list and circle the ones that that day’s particular attribute is most likely to result in if you truly experience and enjoy that attribute. And there’s a space below that where you can write in your own if it is not in the list. That will help remind you through the day to think in terms of relational results, not just some empty discipline. If some aspect of God’s glory really should generate peace in my heart, and I am not experiencing peace today, then I am not having much of an experience of that attribute today.
Then, on the back of the card, write the verse out. Your flesh will recoil at that. Everything in you will say, “Don’t write the verse out. It is too much work. You do not have time for that. Don’t worry – you’ll remember the verse just fine.” Do not listen to your flesh. It takes about 30 seconds to write the average verse. Writing a verse makes the words of that verse travel through parts of your brain that it otherwise bypasses.
So now you have this little card. Carry it around all day long, and every transition stop and use that little card to help you enjoy God’s presence for a few moments before moving to the next task in your day. These are also great for days when, for whatever reason, you miss your normal time with the Lord. You will still have the card in your had from the previous day, so you have something to help you through today. In fact, you may want to carry the last several day’s cards around with you. Thinking about a variety of God’s attributes and promises can be especially rewarding.
Attributes to behold, desire, experience & enjoy:
Promise to trust:
What will result if I experience this attribute today:
Gladness, joy, greater love & desire for God (and all He loves), safety, protection, peace, calmness, willing heart, pleasure, hope, encouragement, comfort, rest, refreshment like water to a tree, restoration, guidance, confidence, courage, honor, vindication, fullness, satisfaction, a sense of being attended to & cared for, renewal, transformation, strength, motivation, enlightenment, greater abiding presence of Christ, experiential knowledge of the love that surpasses knowledge, fear of God, awe, reverence, desire to obey
