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Scripture for the day: Jeremiah 29:13,14 And you will seek me and find me, when you search for me will all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity.
Thought for the day: I hear people say - I've said it myself - that they bumped into God when they were doing something completely different or had no thought He might be there.  What a wonderful thought; that we might be making our way through a completely ordinary day and, all of a sudden, bump into God as he interjects himself into some random event.  Hogwash!  God never just shows up; the problem is that we don't generally pay close enough attention to see him when he's right there in every circumstance of life.  But that's not really what I wanted to talk about.  What I really wanted us to keep in mind is that God is never found accidentally.  Look again at the verses we have for today.  The Lord put conditions on finding him; that we seek him diligently, that we seek him purposefully and that we seek him for the right reasons.
     You see, I believe it's as important why we are seeking God as it is that we look for him in the first place.  So, why do we look for the Lord?  What are our motives in spending time reading his Word, praying, and meditating on the things of God?  One of our favorite verses concerning prayer is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Many of us can quote it from memory: "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."  Bless God, I'm so glad for the truth of these words.  But I wonder if there's not more to this than meets the eye.  Have we left out a key ingredient in this whole prayer emphasis we hear so much about? I find it interesting that we spend so much time developing expansive prayer lists so we won't forget to take the great needs of the day before the throne of grace.  I need peace so I write that on my list.  I need strength so I write it on my list.  Aunt Emma needs new teeth so I write it on my list.  The church needs to get the parking lot paved so I write that on my list. When I'm done compiling this laundry list of great needs, I take it to that great Supply Sergeant in the sky and present it to him.  He then goes back into the storehouse of grace and provided answers to each and every one of my requests.
     I'm not trying to poke fun, really I'm not, but sometimes it seems to me that we spend way too much time concentrating on what we can get from the Lord and not enough focusing on who He is.  The missing ingredient in too many of our prayers is this: we're too often not seeking God for who He is and rather seeking him as a means to an end.  When we allow our selfish motives to enter the equation, we will never truly find God.  He has determined not to be one of the greatest desires we have; he will be all or nothing.  The Lord God will not be used.  The clear teaching of scripture is that God is to be loved for his own sake.  The only real reason for our creation is that we might love and worship our Creator.  The first and greatest commandment is that we are to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your souls, and with all your strength."  Jesus was very clear when He said, "When you pray do not be like the heathens who think they'll be heard because of their many words... You're heavenly Father knows you need these things...Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you."
    Our efforts to find the treasures we seek without God (or with his assistance) has been the major pursuit of mankind since the beginning.  But it's never been God's intention.  Like a loving father, He has always intended for his creation to be at peace through his provision of our every need.  Like spoiled children we have consistently asked, begged, for things that are neither good for us nor within his will.  Through much effort we have been able to accumulate some of these things but God has not been there in the pursuit.  The Lord has always intended that we should love him for who he is; no hidden agendas, no ulterior motives, no laundry list of wants.  When we do, we find that he becomes all we really needed in the first place.
Now go take on your world.  -  Bill