From the stories of Scripture to the testimonies of modern Christian life, all of the history of God’s people is brought into infinitely brighter focus when you realize just how great and how passionate God’s affection for them really is. He loves us more than we can ever know. Even while we run from him and then wallow in our own destruction, God fervently yearns for us to return home and be restored to him. We need only seek him out.
By the time of King Asa, the great-great-grandson of King David, the people of Israel had been up and down a lot with God. They had gone through multiple cycles of rallying to seek God out and finding him eager to be with and bless them, and then growing stagnant (which is really no better than falling away) and finding themselves miserable without God, and then needing yet another revival. So once again, Asa re-devoted himself and his people to God. And because God is a God of love, who loves to fellowship with his people and who is steadfast with his promises, God was found.
I’d wager there has never been a single Christian, alive or dead, that has not struggled with similar ups and downs. Time and time again, our devotion grows stale, and we find ourselves godless and miserable, longing for some restoration. Even as I write this, I have recently been struggling hard against this very staleness and yearning to be revived. It turns out it’s an extremely commonplace Christian experience to feel nagging shame in seasons of little faith—so let no one think they’re the only one! All of us, whenever our zeal wanes and our obedience falters, find ourselves dreadfully incapable of handling life’s challenges alone.
But God promises us that if we seek him, he will eagerly let himself be found. So seek the Lord. Cry out and call upon his name. Surrender yourself and abide entirely in him, and let his Spirit abide in you. Seek him in prayer, and then seek him in prayer some more. Do not stop pounding on the door of Heaven and begging incessantly for more and more of God’s presence, until it becomes an involuntary habit to do so. Your God in Heaven yearns for you, his beloved child, to be restored to him; he longs to redeem everything that is broken and fill you with the perfect peace that only comes from him. Seek the Lord, and he will be found.
