Seeking God With All Your Heart

by Ivan Venter
(South-Africa)

Psa 63:1 "A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God; I will seek You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You, as in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;" (Modern King James Version)

This wonderfully written psalm depicts the longing desire that David has to experience more of God. It leaves the reader with a sense of desperation on David's part, nothing is more important and everything else can wait. In fact when looking at David's life we see that this longing and desire gave direction to this sometimes troubled man. It was in other words his desperation for God that became an important part of his character and person.

This is clearly shown in his time of repentance after murdering Uriah to be able to marry Bathsheba (2Sam.11-12). We read in Psa 51:11 “Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.” And in Psa 51:16-17 “For You do not desire sacrifice; or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. (17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” (Modern King James Version)

When looking to our own life's we sometimes read these stories in the Bible with a sense of awe, wondering and feeling that this kind of relationship is out of our grasp as children of God. Others get the feeling that this is the mountain that they cannot climb feeling helpless in their walk with God.

Keeping this in mind I do not think that God wants us to feel helpless in our relationship with Him. And that is why He sent the Holy Spirit to help us in our journey with Him. This does not however imply that we have no part to play.

Let's examine Psalm 63 to get a better picture of what I am driving at. The first couple of verses gives us the picture of someone in love with God, in other words the fruit of David's labor that he put into his relationship with God. When reading it like that we can say that David's desperation for God was the result of an everyday walk with God. We have to remember that we are in a relationship that needs time, energy and sacrifice to grow.

The first thing that has to happen in out lives is getting our priorities in order with a no compromise attitude, making some really tough decisions, in faith I might ad, preparing your life for more of God and less of yourself.

This is the single toughest decision that you will have to make everyday of your life. To give you an example I will share an experience from my own life with you. A while back me and my wife found ourselves having a little extra money the one month, filled with gratitude and joy for the gift that God has given us we decided to give some of the money to a family member in desperate financial trouble. A few days later we realized that we have made a mistake in calculating our monthly budget, leaving us in a situation where we had to decide if we still wanted to give some of the money to the family member. We immediately decided to keep the money to get through the troubled month.

A few days later I prepared a teaching about trusting God with your finances and it suddenly hit me that the first sign of murky waters gave my faith a fright out of the window. I got back home and me and my wife made a hard decision that day to seek and rely upon God for that month, giving what we said that we would give. The wonderful thing about it is that God blessed us with more than we could ever dream about.

It all boils down to this: God will never fit into your life, your life has to fit into God!

What are you seeking in your life at this stage?