Seeking & Thirsting for God

1. What does this mean?


Question: If you are a believer in Christ and accept Him as Lord and Saviour, then you have eternal life. But what is the purpose of eternal life?


Answer: To know the only true God - our Father in heaven - and to know Jesus Christ (Jn 17.3)

So how do we really get to know someone? We seek them out and spend time with them. We converse with them. We learn to trust what they say and to rely upon them. In time we feel able to pour our heart out to them, and to listen to their heart and what they want and need. In time we learn to love them, help them and simply want to be with them.


Question: So how many of us really seek God in this sense? Do we take time out from busy lives to spend time with Him - that is - spend hours at a time with Him and not just five minutes in prayer? Do we want to spend time with Him? Does our inner being 'pant' and 'thirst' for God; have we cried through the night searching for Him (Ps 42.1-3)? Do we rise early and seek Him (Ps 63.1)? If not, why not? Remember, God wants us to seek Him:

"The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God." (Ps 14.2)

2. Seeking is essential for our well-being

Seeking is not an optional extra. It is actually a command to the believer:

"Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near." (Isa 55.6)

This is well illustrated in the life of King Asa of Judah; "He did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God" (2 Chron 14.2). He told Judah:

"... because we have sought the LORD our God .... He has given us rest on every side" (2 Chron 14.7)

And the land prospered. But then Ethiopia attacked Judah with 1 million men. With army facing army, Asa cried out to the God he knew and said:

"LORD, it is nothing for You to help ... we rest on You ... in Your name we go against this multitude." (2 Chron 14.11)

The Ethiopians fled. In 2 Chron 15 we see that Asa was encouraged by the prophet Azariah, who said to him:

"The LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you." (2 Chron 15.2)

And when we find Him we will be blessed:

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness ..." (Mat 5.6)

3. Seeking is essential for a Nation

King Asa gathered all Judah together at Jerusalem. Here they

"... entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul ... and He was found by them and the LORD gave them rest all around." (2 Chron 15.12-15)

As the people sought God, the nation was protected by Him. The LORD said the same to Solomon:

"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 Chron 7.14)

But later King Asa left his reliance on the LORD and made a treaty with his enemies to appease them (2 Chron 16). Then one of Judah's prophets came to him and said "... you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied upon the LORD your God ... in this you have done foolishly; therefore, from now on you shall have wars" (2 Chron 16.7-9).


Question: Does this apply to Britain today - a nation which has left her reliance upon God and now relies upon her own strength and treaties with the EU? Will God heal the land even if just a remnant (a Christian minority) humble themselves and pray and seek His mercy for the sinful state in which we find ourselves - widespread teenage promiscuity, promotion of abortion, social and family breakdown, promotion of homosexuality, promotion of other faiths, rejection of biblical teaching, increasing national debt, corrupt leaders, weak church ...? God watches nations (Jer 18.7-10).


4. How others sought God

Our best model is of course Jesus:

"He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God" (Lk 6.12)

Do we feel the need to do this? What would happen if we did?

John Nelson was a contemporary of John Wesley and was one of the foremost pioneer circuit pastors of early Methodism in England. He once said: 'If you spend several hours in prayer daily, you will see great things'. John made a rule to rise from bed about twelve midnight and sit up till two for prayer and converse with God. Then he slept till four, at which time he always rose.

Charles Finney, a preacher in the 1850's with amazing gifting, 'struggled and groaned and agonised' before God for the lost. One day he proposed that people around him should pray in private for revival at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset for one week. No other means was used. The Spirit was poured out and before the week ended all the meetings were packed!

David Brainerd yearned in the 1740's for the salvation of Native Americans scattered along the colonial trails and farther west. He said: 'I wrestled for my friends, for the ingathering of souls, for multitudes of poor souls, and for many that I thought were children of God. I was in such agony from sun half an hour high, till near dark, that I was all wet with sweat'.

John Smith was among the earliest gospel preachers in Oregon. It is said that 'Where the result that he desired did not attend his own ministry, he would spend days and nights almost constantly on his knees, weeping and pleading before God - travailing for precious souls till he saw Christ magnified in their salvation'. Someone said 'I have seen him come downstairs in the morning after spending several hours in prayer, with his eyes swollen with weeping'.

So to seek and thirst for God means many things: it means a determined, diligent searching for Him at the expense of other activities. It means wrestling and struggling and groaning, perhaps with tears, for those outside the Kingdom or who are in great need. It means learning to hear the Spirit speaking. It seems that without at least some doing the 'seeking', then the preaching and study and plans and schemes of the church will be largely ineffective. In the words of Rev. David Stoner,

"Study, books, eloquence and fine sermons are all nothing without prayer."

In practice many of us cannot achieve or are not called to such a deep, time-consuming, intercessory prayer life; we may be called to other ministries. But God still wants us all to deepen our knowledge of Him, as in Jn 17.3.

Bible quotations are from the New American Standard Bible