Do you ever think about what it will be like to see J3sus? I mean, I think as Followers we all do. When we actually get to feel His embrace, see His face, and hear His voice. I think the song hits the nail on the head when it says "I can only imagine." One of my
favorite things to do is imagine that day. I honestly think I sometimes make C a little nervous because I frequently go on and on about how excited I am to be there. Just to be face to face with J. It's going to be
amazing. There won't be any distractions or obstacles that get in the way of our intimacy with Him. It will just be us and Him and glory and joy and peace.
The other day I was listening to Spotify and the song
The More I Seek You by Kari Jobe came on:
The more I seek you,
The more I find you
The more I find you, the more I love you
I want to sit at your feet
Drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breathe, feel your heart beat
This love is so deep, it's more than I can stand
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming
I really do believe that the L0rd is sovereign over the shuffling playlist on Spotify because this song perfectly matched the way I was feeling. I was thinking about being in His presence and how excited and ready I am to be there. I'm a weary sinner, and I'm really ready to be free of the things that too often keep me from my Father. I was thinking about how excited I am to be in eternity when the L0rd reminded me that His love for me is the same today as it will be on that day. Yes, His love for me is the same today as it will be on that day! Now that's amazing. He doesn't only love the made-new, perfected version of me that He will embrace on that day. He loves me now. Although unhindered intimacy with Him will be perfect and wonderful in eternity, He wants to embrace me, speak to me, and reveal Himself to me just as much now as He will want to then. Father reminded me of His promises in Scr!pture that if we seek Him, we will find Him. There's no question, no maybe. If we seek Him, we will find Him. That's a promise.
In Deuteronomy 4, Moses is speaking to the Israelites about entering the promised land, and he reminds them of where the L0rd has brought them from and warns them about the danger of forgetting what He has done and giving in to idolatry. However, even in his warning, there is a promise:
"When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the L0rd your G0d, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the L0rd will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the L0rd will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the L0rd your G0d and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the L0rd your G0d and obey his voice. For the L0rd you G0d is a m3rciful G0d. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them." (Deut. 4:25-31)
As I did more reading, I found another Scr!pture that says almost the exact same thing. In Jeremiah's letter to the exiles in Babylon, he speaks of a promise:
"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the L0rd, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the L0rd, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." (Jer. 29:12-14)
And again in a Psalm of David from the wilderness of Judah:
“You, G0d, are my G0d, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1)
Although I'm positive I don't know what it means to truly suffer or be in exile, I feel more and more heavily the "tribulations" of this world. There are "gods of wood and stone" (and plasma...if you're talking about TV screens) everywhere I look, and I grow weary of the tribulations I allow into my life when I choose idols over the One I love. In so many ways I feel like this land (especially the land we are currently living in) is a "dry and parched land." Our world is broken, and it's only right to long for the New Earth, the perfect Earth; however, it is equally important to long for more of Him "from here" (Deut. 4:29).
The words of the song are true. When we seek Him, we find Him. When we find Him, we love Him more. When we love him more, we want other things less. When we want other things less, we repent of idolatry. When we repent of idolatry, there are fewer things keeping us from experiencing His love more fully. I'm so thankful that He sought and found me in my exile, when my idolatry was at its worst, and made it possible for me to seek Him. I'm overjoyed that it doesn't stop there but that there is a promise for continued "finding" of J. I will never stop anxiously awaiting the day when I can physically embrace J3sus and be fully in His presence, but until then, with His help and only by His gr@ce,I will earnestly seek Him and stand firm on the promise that there is more of Him to find, know, and love.
