Seeking the God who is there (Proverbs 25)
There’s a great big universe out there.
Do you ever consider it?
It’s been a joy watching my boy catch an interest in black holes recently. “Dad did you know that nothing can escape a black hole’s gravitational pull? Dad did you know that some black holes are bright? Dad..” I love it. An inquiring mind seeking out a mystery warms the heart.
In light of such investigations this line from Proverbs 25 caught my attention;
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”
(Proverbs 25:2 NIV11)
God conceals and kings get to search it out. Today we’d probably be a little more democratic in thinking that the glory of discovery is open to all – not just the rulers. It does amaze me though, that God has placed us in the middle of a universe that expands vastly above us in galaxies and quasars and contains incredible intricacies of atoms and particles below us. Things in both ‘directions’ that we are only now beginning to understand.
I’ve eagerly followed the launch and journey of the James Webb Space Telescope travelling to a point 1.5 million kilometres from earth to study the far reaches of the universe. There is a wonder to the created order and an energy in uncovering it that powers scientists and inspires hearts and minds. But searching out the beauty of the universe should be a derivative or secondary joy. It should flow from the first seeking that all inquiring minds are drawn to – namely to reach for the God who is behind it all. As Paul said to the Athenians,
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. .. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”
(Acts 17:17, 27–28 NIV11)
God wants us to seek Him and we should be moved to do so from our marvelling at the created order. Fortunately there is encouragement in both the Old and New Testaments that energy expended to find Him will not be wasted:
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
(Jeremiah 29:13 NIV11)
An in the New with Jesus Himself we hear;
““Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
(Matthew 7:7–8 NIV11)
So seek! Enjoy the discoveries of this wonderful world around us, marvel at it and indeed let it lead you to worship. And may that worship flow because you have met the answer to the primary search and found the God who is really there revealed in the Son He loves through the glories of the very Bible we have read a proverb from today.
Grace and peace,
Stuart.
