Seek God when God can be found

a verse or two

“Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found”
Ps 34: 6

Spiritual Walk and Musings: Seek God when God can be found. 

When is it we pray? The writer of Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything...yet I wonder if at times we get a tad impatient with God, or a tad too cocky or even down right rude. What I mean is we decide we will make the effort to seek God or to pray to God when it suits our time frame, our addenda and not when God is knocking, not when God is wooing, not when God available to be found.

The above verse in Psalm 34 seems to be in a context of a all things going crazy and that one is able to meet with God, bring things before God and the “rising floods” will not reach, will not hurt. The Message translation puts it like this.

Ps 32: 5 “Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared. 6 These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray; when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts we’ll be on high ground, untouched. 7 God’s my island hideaway, keeps danger far from the shore, throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.

So some Bible translations seem to indicate “just get on your knees and pray...and the flood will not hit”. But when reading verse 6 from the ESV or NIV translation—there seems to be a hint of “seek God when God may be found”. Meaning God is not a toy or someone or being we can manipulate. Instead all of us in St. David’s need to seek God while God may be found—which implies there are times when God may not be found. Think of Christ on the cross, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” Matt 27: 45. In Christ’s deepest hour of need, his cry was “God, where the hang are you”. A cry we all cry at times. Verse 6 of Psalm 32 seems to confirm what human experience would indicate. That God is not always there, not always available at our whim or at the drop of a hat. God is not a form of a Santa Clause or kind of cosmic best buddy.

Instead God is God and we ought to meet with God when God may be found.

So when is God to be found. Who is that knocking on your heart? What is the small still voice speaking to your mind? What is God saying to you in your daily reading of the Bible? A Godly person seeks God. Please be encouraged to meet God regularly because we don’t know when the desert times will hit, desert times where it feels like God is sound asleep.

God bless
Jon

To Ponder and Pray: A prayer by Augustine of Hippo (modern-day Tunisia, 354 - 430)

O God, you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless
until they find their rest in you.