Seek and ye shall find me

As children we all probably played the game of hide and seek. Some people find a hiding spot and another tries to find everyone. One of our children always seemed to excel at this game and would find the most ingenious spots you wouldn’t expect someone to be hiding because you wouldn’t think a body could fit into such a confined space. :)

One day I happened to be at home alone with this child. She was perhaps 5-6 years old. It may have just been a Saturday afternoon but everyone else was out of the house somewhere. I was working on something and hadn’t heard from her in a while and thought I’d better check on her. I couldn’t find her anywhere. She wasn’t responding to my calls. We weren’t playing a game. I quickly ran around the house and verified that all the doors were locked. She didn’t leave but she wasn’t responding to me. Some amount of fear crept into my heart worried that something had happened to her. Now I went through the house more carefully, worried something did happen to her and perhaps she was unconscious. I was constantly calling her while I checked. Something was definitely wrong. I checked the entire house three times screaming her name at the top of my lungs. I was sure there was no way she’d left the house since it was all locked up and a door would have been unlocked if she’d exited. I was now in a full panic. Something was very wrong. As I entered my own bedroom for what seems like the 4th time, instead of rounding the corner into the bathroom like I’d done, I turned the other way and went around the bed. It was up against the wall and I had ignored that area up till now because there was no need to look there. It was just a space between the bed and wall and she wouldn’t be there because she just wouldn’t. And there she was, crouched down with a grin on her face. What a mixture of feelings that moment flooded me with. Anger and relief were the two prominent ones. I definitely had elevated my emotions to a very high point. I don’t remember exactly what I said to this child but it’s highly likely I wasn’t open to the Spirit telling me “be careful, this is a very important person” moment. :) Being unaware we were playing a game while being in one was definitely not a fun experience.

Seek and ye Shall Find in the Scriptures

A much better experience is playing hide and seek with the scriptures. The Lord has intentionally hidden treasures throughout the scriptures which are there for us to find. They sometimes hide in plain sight, making them hard to see initially until the Spirit speaks to us and says, “stop reading that as figurative. It’s a literal statement. It actually means what it says.” That one has been a big revelation at times. At other times, the treasures are found by extensive searching. The Lord hides things so that those who do not seek, will not find or receive. It’s a bit like the parables. A protection for those not ready for the truth, and a great blessing for those that perceive there is something there and just need to expend the effort to find it. Sometimes the most satisfying treasures are the hardest and longest searches (especially if there is no panic involved in finding the treasure :)).

What is it that the Lord meant when he said “seek and ye shall find?” There were definitely some interesting things I found when I took the time to search for these treasures.

The Study Topic

In Scripture Notes, open up a search pane and do a search for this phrase, being sure to include the wildcards to find variations of the words.

seek* and find*

You will find 35 results from this search. Some of the verses will require you to click to add a previous or next verse. Some verses you may want to remove as irrelevant to the topic.

Create a collection note from these verses and copy/paste these questions into the master note. If you haven’t tried Scripture Notes yet, please sign up for a free account and do the first tutorial to see how easy this is.

What does it mean to seek?

What do the scriptures teach me to seek? What is hidden from me?

How do I find?

Am I commanded to seek?

In the collection note, click the right arrow to expand it and give the note a single tag of “Ask Seek Knock” and click save.

You may want to look up some words in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, and some of the Bible scriptures for “seek and ye shall find” in Strong’s Concordance.

You may want to ask some questions at this point such as, “how do I seek you Lord?”  It will be helpful to review last week’s post, Ask and Ye Shall Receive. You may also want to review previous posts on seeking the mysteries of God and seeking the gifts of the Spirit. There are many things the Lord is willing to let us find, IF we will seek them out.

What did the scriptures teach you in this study session? Leave a comment below.

(Featured Image by Aleksandr Davydov @123rf.com)