During April 2018, I visited a small community church in Glennville, California. The pastor encouraged us to be seekers after God – asking us to search for God’s ways until they shone. Aha.
I thought: “We Helenans can relate. Our Four Georgians followed a hunch on a last chance gulch and found – gold! Soon, many others came seeking treasure – until it shone. Such quests are the foundations of our community.”
We still search – for more than gold. We pursue friends, family, health, meaning.
Faith, more Precious than Gold
Like the preacher in the California mountains, I want to entice us to seek God. Peter describes Jesus finding many and them finding him in this way. 1 Peter 1:7 – “Your faith (is) more ‘precious’ than gold.” “Precious” is used only three times in the NT.
In one passage, Jesus highlights the pearl of great price – Matthew 13:45,46 – “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of ‘great value,’ went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
Believe Jesus; be on an all-consuming quest for the kingdom of heaven! Honoring God as our King – living according to the ways of his kingdom – exploring life with other blood-bought beloved subjects of the King – incomparable.
In the other scripture, John’s story grabs our attention. John 12:3-5 – “Mary took a pound of ‘expensive’ ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”
A denarius represented a day’s wage. So this perfume, even at today’s minimum wage, was valued at nearly $20,000!
Like Judas, we can know the price of everything and the value of nothing. And worse. Judas, privileged close companion of The Pearl of Unfathomable Price, first missed and then betrayed Jesus.
God, help us.
Missing God
Psalm 10:4 is direct: “In his pride the wicked man does not seek (God); in all his thoughts there is no room for God.” To what extent does that honestly describe us? I can go multiple hours without thinking about God. God help me.
On a recent flight, my seat companion told me he did not pray. He didn’t want to ask God for anything. We had already spoken about my Mom’s death. So, I disclosed that prayer composed a substantial building block of her life. God has answered and is still answering many of her prayers. Would my seatmate reconsider his prayerlessness?
Maybe a mustard seed was planted – one that God can germinate sooner or later – until, mixing metaphors, it glows like gold!
God Finding Us
On another flight, a young man told me he had started following Jesus a few years ago. God answered his specific prayers – particularly regarding his wife and her work. Remarkably detailed answers led him to God – to church – to a Bible study – and to a new way of life – for himself and his family. What treasures he found!
I asked him how he got the idea to pray. He replied: “I think God gave it to me.” Great answer.
Friend, how about you? Do you pray? Would God use this column to give you the idea to pray?
The Next Step
Mom’s marching instructions for my homily at her funeral were to focus on Jesus’ words: “You have not because you ask not.” Sadly, even those of us familiar with these words often don’t take the next step and pray.
Somehow, Mom took that next step. When Dad, my three siblings, and I left for school, she read her Bible and prayed. These spiritual disciplines undergirded decades. I can’t imagine how different life would be without her prayers. In recent times, when dementia occasionally interrupted, she could find her stride again as she prayed.
Will you take the next step?
False Alternatives
Sometimes, guilty, we turn away from God, ashamed. Or, proud and preoccupied, immunized by our self-sufficiency, we fail to sense our need for God. Paul rebukes us for remaining in guilt or pride. Again and again, he calls us to come to the cleansing, humbling cross. Come.
Sometimes, idle, we diminish life. We do not pray. Contrarily, overly active, we assume we can impress God – or at least others – with how busy we are. We are too absentminded to pray.
In Thessalonians, Paul confronts our idleness with “those who do not work shall not eat” And he rebukes our hyper-busyness. Translators take the compound word: “peri” – “to go all-around” + “ergazmenos” – “work” and give us “busybodies.” Get the picture? We, busybodies, are addicted to speed/busyness/setting our own agenda – not meshing life with God.
Our Hope
But, in Christ, God draws near, helping us repent and live by faith. Faith intuits his movement toward us, and we turn to him – pursuing a heart-to-heart relationship with him and others.
Prayer facilitates that turn. The most frequently used Greek word for prayer in the NT begins with movement – and most of that advance is God proceeding toward us. Jesus uses this word when he cleans out the temple and declares: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all people.”
Christian, and those who will someday follow Jesus, we either are or will be his temple. He can make us into houses of prayer where friendship deepens.
Set your phone alarms to 4:06. Pray for Montana, our leaders, and our significant needs – we are number one in suicide again. Perhaps, honoring Mom, use 3:30, the day God promoted her to Glory. Or, choose another time, but begin a spiritual discipline of regular praying. See what gold God unearths.
Adoniram Gordon (1836-1895): “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed.” That gold shines.
