Seeking God

“Seeking God” Isaiah 55: 1-9 08/06/23

When my grandson Isaiah was three years old, he had a problem of wandering off and hiding. One day my daughter Maeghan and my wife Becky were shopping at a local mall and of course, he slipped off. All of a sudden, they realized he was missing. They panicked, running through the whole store calling his name. But he never answered. The sense of loss was overwhelming. How could he have gotten away that easily? Where could he have gone? Or the worse fear of every parent….. has someone taken him?

There in a single moment, Maeghan and Becky went from a pleasant shopping trip to total devastation. In a blink of an eye, they had lost the most precious thing in their lives.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever lost sight of one of your children? It has to be one of the worst feelings in the world.

Did you know that this is the way Our Father feels about us? He knows we have a tendency to slip away and hide from him. And we know that instead of hiding, we should be seeking Him. We are his children, and he cannot forget nor forsake us. He waits and encourages us to seek and find Him, as He seeks us. It reminds me of the hymn “I Sought the Lord, and Afterward I Knew,"

The first line is; I sought the Lord and afterward I knew, He moved my soul, to seek Him, seeking me.

Sermon ending tie-in:

That day, Maeghan and Becky eventually found Isaiah. He was hiding beneath a rack of clothes. I can’t express how much their hearts leaped with joy. That is how much God cares for us.

Have you wandered off from our Father? Are you hiding from Him? Have you stopped seeking Him? I say, call out to Him and earnestly seek his face. Listen, listen with your heart. You may hear God call your name. You may hear him say, “There you are, I have been looking everywhere for you. Come out from your hiding and into my loving arms….come to me, the one who loves you most.”