It had been a busy day and I was positively buzzing in my head. I was glad to get into bed. As I did I managed to quieten down. I just laid back on my pillow and I wasn’t even trying to hear, or straining that is, to hear God’s voice and I heard; ‘I will be found of you’ in that still small whisper.
It is a long time since I’ve heard that verse or even sung the song. I know that as a line from a song when growing up and was aware that it was a scripture somewhere. I checked it out and was surprised it was in this passage:
Jeremiah 29:11-14 (New English Translation):
For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord . ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers. When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, I will make myself available to you,’ says the Lord . ‘Then I will reverse your plight and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord . ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’
I found it first in the New King James Version of my Bible app as it uses the words that I’d heard from the song. Often as Christians we may have have heard the first part about the Lord’s plans but not the bit after. The emphasis should be more on the condition – when. This is followed by seeking which needs to be wholehearted – then the result will follow.
In the version quoted the result is the Lord making himself available to us. I like both translations one implies that the Lord has been lost to us but the scripture states this does not have to be so. The other, that is the text from the chunk above (NET), talks about how he will give himself to us. That is very exciting! I know this was said to the children of Israel but when he speaks and brings a word alive it’s as if we were there or in other words it is for us now who are in Jesus under the new covenant. We are no longer exiled or oppressed. This is sometimes called quickening. May we be more quickened.
The scripture I have shared, comes from a longing I have to experience the trinity more tangibly in the present moment, to sense him i. e. touch, taste, smell, see and hear. He will draw near as we draw near to him it’s a promise but we need to be wholehearted in our desire for him.
These little phrases below are key.
Call out to me…
Come to me in…
I will…
Seek me…
You will…
To seek him is a discipline but it’s not something we should strive out of self righteousness or human endeavour but by his grace and his Holy Spirit.