Seek His Face

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV)

I would be incredibly surprised if any church attending Christian is not familiar with this verse. And I suspect that many have become quite familiar with it over the course of the last 18 months or so.

Last week during a time of prayer at our church, I was prompted to read and meditate on this passage for a while. I came to look at it a little differently than I had previously and felt that God gave me a little insight into what it means – and what we can do as believers to help this promise come to fruition.

First of all, the mathematician and logician in me appreciates the conditional logic aspect of it…

“If My people… then I will...”

In logic terms this is written in the format of if P then Q. Where P is considered the hypothesis and Q is called the conclusion. Basically, it means that when P is true, then Q must also be true.

From a spiritual perspective, this is good news! The verse is saying if we do our part, God will do His. How many times in life do we actually get to control the outcome of something? We are told what our part is, so why don’t we do it?

I then decided to parse and simplify the verse into the verbs in the passage – the actions that we are told to participate in, and the resulting conclusion, or end result, that God will provide.

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

So, our part is to:

• Humble ourselves

• Pray

• Seek

• Turn

And as a response, God will:

• Hear

• Forgive

• Heal

Now, during my prayer time the other night, this is where it got interesting. As I looked at those actions required of us, I felt God speak to my spirit something along the following lines…

“Humility is not the problem. Neither is prayer. My people understand both and manage to do a pretty good job of them. And turning from your evil and wicked ways is something that you have mostly done if you are a committed follower of mine. But seeking – this is where the problem lies. You need to SEEK more – this is the key. And not in a “Seeker” sense, but in a “search My heart” sense.”

Wow. This surprised me, to say the least. Personally, I know I could pray more. I also know that pride can slip in giving my humility a real run for the money. And my flesh still has some wicked and evil thoughts a times, even if I don’t act on them. I thought the “Seek” part was where I was pretty safe! I read my Bible. I look for ways to learn more and more about Him. The thought went through my mind, “What am I missing here?”

The answer started to hit me at the end of our prayer time, when one of our Pastors was praying and said, “Break our heart for what breaks yours, Father.” Have you ever thought about what breaks God’s heart? Said a little differently, have you ever spent time seeking, or even better, sought out what those things might be?

The scripture says, “seek My face”. It reminds me of a parent talking to a young child during a time of instruction, “look at me”, the parent says, “eyes up here.” The child then becomes focused on the parent’s face. And what does the child see? The look on the parent’s face will reflect what is in their heart. Depending on what is being instructed or taught at that time, they could see anything from love to anger to concern to joy – and so much else. The point is this – the child becomes well aware of what is in the parent’s heart as soon as they look squarely into the eyes and face of their parent.

And herein lies the key for us. What would we see in God’s heart if we were to look squarely into His face? Now, obviously we can’t do that literally. But we can look at a situation and ask ourselves, “How does God feel about what’s happening here?” “What is this situation doing to God’s heart?” “What is breaking God’s heart right now? What is bringing Him joy?” I don’t say this in a presumptive or sacrilegious way, assuming we can always know how God feels about a situation or what He may be doing in it – we all understand his thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are higher than our ways (see Isaiah 55:8-9). But that said, some things are not that complicated. I think we can all agree on some things that always break His heart and some things that always bring Him joy.

The short story to this is that we need to be more intentional about the seeking. Less passive and more active; More thoughtful about discerning God’s heart in a situation and quicker to act in response to that understanding.

A few verses to encourage you in this regard…

“If you seek him, he will be found by you.” (1 Chronicles 28:9)

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7)

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

“My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.” (Psalm 27:8)

My prayer for you is that you gain a greater understanding of what it means to seek His face, and that it makes an impact on your prayer life and the actual impact of your prayers.

And my prayer for us all – as a nation, and as Christians everywhere in the world – is that this greater understanding will lead to God hearing, forgiving and healing, faster and sooner than He may have otherwise have.