During a busy ministry season, I was deep in preparation to lead another women’s conference. All the right words were prayerfully typed when I sensed the Spirit asking if what I planned to say was truly representative of my own soul. Was my shrunken heart in any condition to speak into someone else’s?
The truth stared me in the face with jarring clarity: I was a drifter. Unknowingly, I had slipped into the mechanical motions of a windup toy: sounding right on the outside, but on the inside, desperately needing to wake up. I was absorbed in ministry but inattentive to my love relationship with Jesus.
The Lord had stern words for the leaders of His day whose passion and pride exposed the grimy mechanical hearts beneath their squeaky clean exteriors. “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean” (Matt. 23:26). The inside of my cup needed the scrub of repentance along with a reboot of seeking God intimately again. He graciously answered with full-blown mercy: fanning the flames of my heart embers and restoring zeal for the spiritual disciplines that keep our relationship fresh and vibrant. In returning to Him, my heart was revived.
As you begin a new ministry year, will you join me in throwing off the ministry motions and commit to seeking God’s face in humility and repentance?
Seeking God’s Face
God’s face represents His presence. Scripture urges us to seek God’s face because we’re prone to run to substitutes to meet our needs. Psalm 105:4 further emphasizes to seek His face continually, which means without interruption. Why continually? Because God’s presence is the source of everything we need. It’s possible to serve in ministry and completely miss God’s presence. How tragic to seek God only for what He gives while neglecting to seek Him for the pure pleasure of walking in unbroken fellowship. Let’s choose the better way.
Serving before God’s Face
Coram Deo is a Latin phrase that means to live before the face of God. When we live and serve in light of His face, God is at the center of all we do and think:
- We treasure Him in our hearts while we work.
- We are conscious of Him every moment and deliberately invite Him into every decision.
- We routinely pray, “What would You have me do, Lord?” and allow our assignments to originate there.
- We are energized by the Holy Spirit during our workday to prioritize what matters most to God.
King David answered God’s call to seek His face and delight in His excellencies (Psalm 27:9). He also recognized the seriousness of his sin and experienced its consequences when He wasn’t seeking the Lord. He is noted for saying:
Completely wash away my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I am conscious of my rebellion,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you—you alone—I have sinned
and done this evil in your sight. (Psalm 51:2–4)
And—
I have asked one thing from the LORD;
it is what I desire:
to dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
gazing on the beauty of the LORD
and seeking him in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)
Warnings and Blessings
God invites drifters to seek Him and to bring their needs before Him. Scripture likewise admonishes anyone who searches for solutions apart from seeking God. The prophet Isaiah chastised the Israelites for turning to Egypt when they needed help. Because they didn’t look to God or seek Him, He issued a strong warning: “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and who depend on horses!” (Isa. 31:1).
There is also timeliness associated with seeking; Isaiah cautioned the people to “seek the LORD while he may be found; call to him while he is near” (Isa. 55:6). If we delay seeking God’s face until the crisis passes or we aren’t as consumed or distracted, we will drift even further away.
Contrast these warnings with the myriad blessings pledged to those who seek the Lord:
- They won’t lack any good thing (Psalm 34:10).
- They have understanding (Prov. 28:5).
- They will be rewarded (Heb. 11:6).
- They are loved and will find the One they seek (Prov. 8:17).
- They won’t wander from His commands (Psalm 119:10).
- They will never be abandoned by the Lord (Psalm 9:10).
Seek Him This Year
The soul-satisfaction of seeking God’s presence is like nothing else you chase: you never come away empty-handed. The Lord promises, “You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). There are treasures of faith, hope, courage, joy, perseverance, and love that will be deposited into your heart when you become a seeker.
While it’s ever-tempting to share these treasures on the public platform we’ve been given, there should be some sacred things between us and our covenant-keeping Father that are unpublished and kept hidden under lock and key.
God is still in the process of working all of this into my life, but I’ve already learned seeking Him is worth everything. It’s worth whatever you must do to stop going through the ministry motions and return to Him. There is no greater delight or higher pursuit than intimacy with the One who created, knows, loves, and calls you into ministry.
This year, don’t become a drifter like I did. Don’t be satisfied by looking the part rather than living as the woman and leader God wants you to be. God is magnified through the lives of those who seek Him. If you’ve wandered, don’t waste another minute. Return now. If your cup needs washing with the cleansing blood of Jesus, will you cry out right away?
God takes great joy in turning drifters into seekers, and seekers into finders:“You will search for the LORD your God, and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut. 4:29).