Seek His Face!

Listen to this.
"Thus says the LORD:
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let Him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgement,and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight," says the LORD.

-Jeremiah 9:23-24

Let us be spurred to know Him intimately and to seek His face always. For He delights in us, His people, yearning for the knowledge of Him and passionate to behold His face. And we glory in this-knowing Him. We glory in the eternal pleasure of enquiring in His temple, in gazing at His beauty and just falling in love with Him.

Nothing else is worth as much as this. So, cast aside every encumbrance, strip off every distraction and SEEK HIS FACE- He who is Mighty to Save, who is our Hope and Deliverer and our Shield and Portion forevermore.

The Battle.

The Christian faith to some, may be boring, banal, irrelevant, outdated and 'churchy'. Where there lacks excitement, life becomes routine and regimented. We are in danger of staggering into a church service, slouched in the pews and listening to a sermon without half expecting our hearts and minds to be blown by it.

Have you found yourself, fixating your attention on the preacher, but having a layer of your thoughts (for we are multi-layered individuals) settling elsewhere, but all of a sudden, you bring that to a screeching halt because you hear something-something so profound and settling that it demands nothing less than all of your attention.

The story of Jacob at the brook of Jabbok is one of those stories that I've heard countless times but never really felt awestruck by. But there comes a point in one's life, where being mindblown by the most unlikeliest of things becomes inevitable.

Jacob fascinates and intrigues me because he is different, in fact I dare say, he dared to be different. He purposed in his heart from the beginning to be different. He was resolute to achieve great things. He defied morality. Many moralists scream murder when discussing Jacob because they cannot comprehend how a man who cheated and bluffed his way through life could have encountered God face to face, sought blessing and received just that. But don't we agree that the Christian life is a life of paradox? We receive blessing to bless others, suffer to gain, die to live.

Jacob found himself being attacked by a stranger in the night. Being a man of formidable strength, he found himself relentlessly fighting his attacker with all the brute and force he could muster. And, he prevailed, the Bible tells us. But watch what happened in the end. He touched the hollow of his thigh and the joint fell out of place. Jacob, left limping and injured. He was defeated wasn't he? After a battle that he thought he had deservedly won, the anticlimax was bitter to swallow. He found himself in a position where he was at the mercy of his attacker, he refused to let go and as he tugged on, his hollowed cries was ' I will not let you go unless you bless me!" -Gen 32:36.

Frederick Buechner in his sermon, "The Magnificent Defeat" tells us of how, like Jacob, we find ourselves battling God as our enemy.

'Our enemy because before giving us everything, he demands of us everything; before giving us life, he demands our lives- our selves, our wills, our treasure.'

The human soul can be as fragile as a white feather but it can also be as formidable as a battleship in war. God will shatter this soul in defeat, just as He did with Jacob. Because there is a blessing to call ours at the end. A blessing that seems worth everything we have given in for, even our very lives. We all have our own personal battles to fight- it is my prayer that we will never ever give up.

And, so back to my earlier point, it is not a mere coincidence that as I'd read Beuchner's sermon on Jacob's magnificent defeat, I also heard about him in the preaching on Sunday. There is a parallel to be drawn and I'm glad to have come to the full understanding of it.