Seeking With Focus

March 6, 2017

Day 65: Seeking With Focus:
"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." —Matthew 6:33

Anderson's lesson today does not include a story, just a list of similes as to how we must seek God. "To seek is to journey and to quest." Anderson says that seeking is something "that must be done daily without distraction."  Like little kids playing hide and seek, if we want to succeed in finding everyone, we must stay focused and "single-minded."

To live righteously we must be "like a bird dog who faithfully points toward the object of its master's desire. The dog never thinks about shortcuts or beating around the bush. Instead, the dog locks steadfastly onto the target and goes straight toward the desired destination. Likewise, we should be straightforward in our words and actions. This includes treating others as we would like to be treated."

Anderson also likens God to parents who provide well-balanced, nutritional meals for their children instead of just sweets and junk food.  He says, "Even when our children unceasingly insist that they need something different, we, as their parents, focus on what is best for them."  The same is true of God.

While I can appreciate the metaphoric language, I'm not particularly moved or inspired by it, especially the simile of the bird dog. Perhaps it is because I have never personally witnessed a bird dog in action. However, God as parent who looks out for His child's well-being, even though it goes against the will of the child, makes perfect sense to me.

All similes aside, what does it really mean to seek with focus? From what I have been taught it means to read the Bible everyday, pray everyday and on all occasions, behave according to the scriptures, keep your eyes fixed on heaven, never miss a service, and never waver. Sounds simple enough, except for the never waver part. I constantly waver. I question, I doubt, I despair, I blame, I get angry with God, I cry, I turn away... only to turn back. However, I am coming to believe like Peter Enns, author of The Bible Tells Me So, that "an unsettled faith is a maturing faith," a faith in which one is seeking with focus. He says that Christians often get the idea that "if they doubt or struggle in some way with the Bible, their faith is weak." We are told that our goal should be "to ease the stress somehow by praying more, going to church twice on Sunday (and Wednesday if need be), or generally to stop being so rebelliously stubborn and asking so many questions." It is not as if someone said that exact statement to me while I attended my former church, but it was the underlying premise of any discussion or lesson. Even though, throughout the books of the Bible (Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms to name a few), there are examples of people who have struggled, doubted, and questioned, when these people were discussed, their behavior was presented as something to avoid. Don't be like so and so, and if you are, admit it, and repent quickly before you are punished. You can be real with God, but be prepared for a spiritual smack down. I am coming to believe that this is not really how God works.

Having doubts does not make a Christian weak, nor does being unsettled invite God's judgement and wrath. Being unsettled is something that we should expect to experience if we are going to continually seek God. Like Paul, we may have the desire to what is good, but can't carry it out. He says in Romans 7:21, "So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me." The focus of our spiritual journey (our seeking) is to continually grow in our faith, not to always be right and do right, or to never have doubts, or to never get angry with God.

To me, seeking with focus means being open and honest about where I am at. It means being real with God and with myself—open to His correction and guidance.  Only then will I be able to overcome.