A Thought For The Week Of November 26

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13) In this context, God - through the prophet Jeremiah - is speaking to his people who had been held captive in Babylon for seventy long years. One of the benefits of exile and captivity was that the faith of God's people had been rejuvenated and refreshed. When Israel and Judah had been great and powerful nations, it had been so easy for them to turn from God, blinded by self-made idols and distracted by the things of the world to the point where God had become an afterthought or an add-on, but hardly central. The exile had changed that. Suddenly, with everything else stripped away, the people turned to God because they had nowhere else to turn. And as the hearts of the people were turned increasingly to God they discovered a source of hope and strength who saw them through even the hardest times until they were able to return to their homeland. Today, it seems that even in the church our hearts are often distracted, pulled in different directions by the various idols and lures around us. We talk about God, we pray to God, we search for God, but sometimes it seems so half-hearted, as if we want God, but we want God along with lots of other "stuff;" a divine toy to go along with the other toys we desperately try to accumulate because we don't want to put anything else (even God) in the place of our desire for self-gratification. That won't work. God has to be more than that. God has to be the centre - not because God needs to be the centre, but because, having experienced and been overwhelmed by divine power and divine love, we have no other place to put God but in the centre. And I've found that works. If you seek God with all your heart, realizing that God is more important than anything else and desperate to build a relationship with God, then you will find God. And that will be a discovery that changes all our lives! Have a great week!