My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. —Psalm 27:8
One reason God hides His face is because He wants you to go looking for Him. By seeing what your reaction is when He hides His face, He can test your earnestness to seek Him.
Will you recognize the difference between the flow of your natural giftings and the flow of God’s special presence? Will you discern the difference between a gift of the Spirit—which is irrevocable—and the intimacy that kindles holy fire?
Are you sensitive to the Dove? Will the counterfeit do? Never! It is only a matter of time until you notice what you have lost when Jesus stays behind. When you see your loss, you must seek His face in repentance. But it’s not enough merely to admit you’ve been wrong. That is only the beginning.
You must go looking for Jesus. It will take you outside your comfort zone to places you’ve never been. Remember that you can step out of a flowing stream, but you can never step back in at the same place. The flow moves on.
Familiar theology, liturgy, clichés, or styles of worship can be very common comfort zones. You may begin to look for Christ in your comfort zones, but what if He isn’t there? Will you admit to this, too?
Seeking the face of the Lord is to settle for nothing but Him. It may require examining teaching you had previously dismissed out of hand. It may mean associating with people you once said you’d have nothing to do with. It may be singing choruses you previously felt were meaningless to you.
Once God has succeeded in getting your attention, you will have to repent and seek God’s face without giving up until you find Him. The journey back may require a lot of humbling, sheer embarrassment.
Seeking God’s face means settling for nothing but the special presence of God—and not stopping until you know you have found Him wherever He is.
Excerpt from The Sensitivity of the Spirit (Charisma House, 2002).
