Articles

You Shall Seek Me

By Justin Huffman

Imagine that you pick up an old newspaper one day and see that the current president had been precisely predicted in this periodical before the elections even took place. That’s not so remarkable, though, since it required little more than a 50/50 guess, right? You notice then that the exact details of his victory were accurately described, down to his methods of campaigning and his opponent’s important mistakes. Still, maybe it was just a fluke forecast. Then your eyes scan the front page of the paper and suddenly you are arrested by the date of the publication; you realize that it was printed almost 200 years before the current president was even born. Now that’s impressive!

That is similar to what happened to the children of Israel, after they had been under the rule of Babylon for almost seventy years. But for the Israelites, there was one big difference:

the predictions they read about had not quite come to pass yet, although the time was clearly drawing near.

Suddenly, the great ruler of Persia, named Cyrus, rose to prominence in the world. No doubt, many of the more knowledgeable Jews scratched their heads and asked themselves, “Doesn’t that name sound familiar?” Those that were diligent enough to investigate may have finally come across Isaiah’s old prophecy (chapters 40 through 48), in which he not only predicted Cyrus’ rise to power, and how he would deliver the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, but also called him by name!

Others would stumble across Jeremiah’s writings and be struck by his prophecy that the reign of Babylon over them would end after exactly seventy years (Daniel 9, Jeremiah 29:10). As part of this prediction, Jeremiah includes these words on behalf of the God who is responsible for his supernatural foresight: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (13).

The Prophecy

How would you react if you read those words? Would you adopt a fatalistic attitude: “what difference does it make then what I do? God has already said what is going to happen, and when; I’ll just sit back and wait for it.” Perhaps a more pertinent question is, how do you read, and respond to, the prophecies and promises of God? Are you moved to fatalism or enthusiasm? Do you pitch in the towel or do you pitch in to help? Do you quit working or do you redouble your efforts?

When Daniel realized the implications of Jeremiah’s prophecy, and the fact that the time foretold was drawing near, he was moved to more than resignation—he was moved to action.

As he journals his intensely urgent response, notice the clear correlation between the prophecies of God through Jeremiah and the prayer of Daniel:

God: “Then…ye shall go and pray unto me” (Jeremiah 29:12)
Daniel: “I prayed unto the LORD my God” (Daniel 9:4).

God: “Ye shall seek me” (13)
Daniel: “I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer” (3).

God: “Then shall ye call upon me” (12).
Daniel: “O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant” (17).

God: “Ye shall search for me with all your heart” (13).
Daniel: “With fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes… I prayed” (3,4)

God: “I will hearken unto you” (29:12).
Daniel: “O Lord, hearken” (19).

God: “I will be found of you” (29:14).
Daniel: “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive” (19)

God: “I will perform my good word toward you” (29:12).
Daniel: “O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee” (16).

God: “I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive” (14).
Daniel: “I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem” (16).

God: “After seventy years…I will visit you” (29:10)
Daniel: “Defer not” (19).

After Daniel prayed, the Lord responded to Daniel’s prayer by sending the angel Gabriel—who appeared to only three saints throughout history, as far as we know—to come with words of comfort and inform Daniel that the time was, indeed, near.

Daniel is not the only daring saint who attached prayer to prophecy. After David heard that his kingdom and throne would be forever preserved by God, his grateful answer to this majestic prophecy included this entreaty: “do as thou hast said” (2 Samuel 7:25). When the ascended Christ concluded his words to John with “surely I come quickly,” John eagerly rejoined, “come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

The Promise

Perhaps what incited Daniel to such a passionate pursuit of his God was the recognition of the promise that was embedded in the prophecy: those who do seek God will find God.

What he read in Jeremiah’s prophecy was certainly and clearly a foretelling of the events that would transpire after the Jews had endured seventy years under the Babylonian yoke—but it was also a two-fold promise to them.

First, it was a promise that they would come to desire him. God assures them, “ye shall seek me.” How could God insure such a change of heart would take place? Was it simply because he looked down through the tunnel of time and foresaw what would occur? Was God, in other words, merely fortune-telling based on a cosmic “crystal ball” kind of knowledge? Or was it something more, something deeper, something that required more than the attribute of omniscience alone? Could it be that God was unveiling his power, as well as his prescience, through the confident words of Jeremiah?

God himself provides the answer as he unfolds his divine plan for the captivity, and subsequent deliverance, of his people:

“I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9b, 10).

Your future unfolds, God tells the Israelites, not simply according to my knowledge, but according to my purpose, which I am performing for my own pleasure.

Thus, Jeremiah’s prophecy could be so boldly set forth because it was based on the omnipotent movements of God. God would incline the hearts of his people toward himself. They would therefore seek him. He would—as he always does—forgive those who search after him with singleness of heart. As a display of his mercy to repentant Israel, he would bring about their long-awaited liberation. His people would be free and his name would be glorified for, once again, he will have done all his pleasure.

And that leads us to the second tier of this tall promise: it was a promise that God would fulfill the desire that he had planted in their hearts. When you seek, God says, you will find. But what does he mean by “I will be found” (Jeremiah 29:14)? Surely he wasn’t lost. Is he hiding? When we seek him, do we find him the way a child finds a playmate, almost like a colossal game of Hide and Seek? Or, worse still, like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, scouring the great expanse of the universe for a glimpse of a single being that is purported to exist out there, somewhere?

No, when the repentant sinner finds God, it is like a ground mole discovering the sun.

It was there all along—vast, present, and radiant. But for some reason, the animal never looked up, never wondered where the light and warmth came from, and always preferred his self-dug holes. But if some unseen power could change his nature and life-long habits, how easy it would be for him to discover that very thing from which he has been hiding. The seeking and the finding would be almost instantaneous.

God assures us that when we seek him, he will be there—where he has always been—and we will find him, not because he was hidden before, but because we never had the desire to look before. Once the desire comes, the finding will follow. That’s a promise.

The Prize

It is worth noticing—in fact, it is vital to a true appreciation—that what God promised the Jews, first and foremost, was more than deliverance from captivity and more than the destruction of their enemy: it was Himself. Notice the inescapable centrality of God in his own promises: you will seek me… you will find me… I will be found of you (Jeremiah 29:13, 14).

The treasure at the end of the rainbow of my prophecy, God says, is me.

Paul apparently had an accurate appraisal of this great prize. That is why he unhesitatingly affirms that to him, everything else is considered loss and dross, if he could but “win Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Not strength, not happiness, not health or wealth—Christ!

Is that the way that you perceive the promises of God? Is that what encourages you the most, whets your appetite the best, strengthens you for the test? In all the promises of joy, of love, of mercy, and even of heaven, do you allow the ultimate prize to be obscured?

Do you realize that God has, above all else, promised you God?

I will never forget the evening when, sitting on my couch the year I graduated from college, God lifted the scales from my eyes that had so long been confusing my estimation of his promises. Until that night the various gifts of peace, forgiveness, wisdom, et cetera had alternated as my chief spiritual goals, depending on the need or circumstance of the moment. Then I came across Psalm 37:4, and read its promise for the first time without filtering it through my preconceived ideas of what makes for the “best blessings”: “delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

Did you catch that? The promise is there, big as the sun; but do you see it? The promise is that, when you make the Lord your chief delight, he will give you himself (the desire of your heart). He is the prize, he is the promise. Everything else, all the other graces, are simply the overflow, the inevitable result of having the fountain gushing in your heart.

When you seek him, beloved, you will find him. No promise could be greater.

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