When my girls were young we were going with some other mom's and their kids to Myrtle Beach. When had just returned from the grocery store and were packing the car. When it was time to walk out I could not find my checkbook. This was before debit cards and I needed to pay for our place with a check. I frantically looked everywhere but could not find it. Ivey reminded me to "let's pray and ask God to help us." So the three of us held hands and asked God to help us find my checkbook. Trusting that He would help us I told them to go play and I would get some things done. After about five minutes I opened the refrigerator and saw a plastic bag holding the meat I had just purchased. I opened it (obviously a nudge from God) and there was my checkbook. I had dropped it in there after I paid so I would take out one check and leave the check book with Mike. This sounds like my everyday life now but that was over twenty years ago! I have gotten real good at asking God to help me find things these days. Then I go about my business and I always "stumble" upon it. Thanks be to God!
There are so many scripture verses that tell us not only to seek but that if you seek you will find. Seek and you WILL find. Proverbs 8: 17, "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me." Deuteronomy 4: 29, "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul." Jeremiah 29: 13, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Matthew 7: 7, "Ask and it will be given to you;seek and you will find..." We think when we "find" God we stop searching but I do not think so. We cannot be in the fullness of God's Kingdom in a single moment. We search for this the entirety of our lives. In all our desires, goals, ideas, heartaches, hopes, prayers, cries, etc we seek God in them.
Luke 11: 9-10, "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you;seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." I learned a little acronym for "ask", "seek" and "knock". If we need love, courage, wisdom, power or patience we simply need to ask. James says in James 1: 5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." If we lack wisdom, we are to ask and it will be given!
Seeking sounds simple but it can be a process. There are areas of our life that require us to not only seek but search. When something is lost or hidden from us, our prayer begins to be our search. We ask God for insight, wisdom, clarity, understanding to help us find what we are seeking.
A knock is not always a one time tap on the door. It may be a series of knocks. When we knock we are requesting admittance. We may be looking for an entrance or an opportunity. Maybe we have found a wall of resistance that we are trying to break down. We have a longing to move into that area. Maybe we feel God calling us or leading us. And when we knock we believe with a solid assurance that the door will be opened! .
Only those who seek shall find!