What God Won’t Let Me Forget
“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13
I have been a Judd fan since 1984. Hit me with some Judd trivia, and I will turn it into a full-blown Shakespearean soliloquy. About mid-solo-career, Wynonna did a remake of the Foreigner song “I Want To Know What Love Is” and still sings it at her live shows. At first, I was all “tell me why”! (Come on…please tell me you got that joke…).
I was never much of a Foreigner fan, so I just didn’t get it.
It doesn’t matter how you seek Him.
I think I get it now. She literally put it on an album subtitled “Songs of Faith, Hope, & Love”. Duh. I don’t know how I missed that…it was right there hiding in plain sight.
It’s a worship song for her. It’s that later-in-life yearning for unfailing love after you’ve experienced some of the hurtful, devastating, depressing disappointments humans have to offer.
There are definitely different styles of earthbound love. There is “Marlena and John-Days of Our Lives” love that we all want but rarely find. There is best friend and friend group love. There is the love we get from our families and our pets, and there is love we have for and receive from teachers, co-workers, and neighbors.
It’s all different, and each of them fills a “spot”, but even all together, they don’t fill every gap. In your darkest and loneliest times, are all of these loves going to be there, all at once, to sustain you? Will they even be there one at a time? I have lived long enough to know that people you think will never abandon you will sometimes be the first to leave.
All these different loves ebb and flow at different rhythms, and if we’re lucky, they sometimes overlap. What happens when they all ebb at the same time, though?
My point here is steadiness and consistency. The unvarnished truth here is that none of them singly are always going to be there when you need it. Romantic love changes, friends come and go, co-workers and neighbors are too busy for you, and pets can’t speak English.
I find myself now in my mid-50s yearning for that steady, unfailing, everlasting love, and the only place anyone can get that is from Jesus. Scripture says in Hebrews 11:6 that “He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” It doesn’t matter how we seek Him. If we fall on our knees in prayer or sing a pop song to Jesus…
Try it. It’s fun with Jesus as the singer or the listener. Go ahead – do “That’s the Way It Is” by Celine Dion or “Shape of My Heart” by the Backstreet Boys.
Seek Him and you shall find Him.
I’m not rejecting human love here; I’m just acknowledging, and maybe even embracing, its limits. We all need love that is constant and dependable because we all need security, but it’s like trying to keep a balloon in the air.
You tap the balloon with romantic love, and it may stay up there a while, but it slowly drifts back toward the ground. Then you punch it back up real hard with friend group love, but it still peaks and eventually falls, too. You end up constantly having to tap the balloon back up. I don’t have the energy, strength, or the will to keep doing that. I need an invariable current. I need a fan with an unlimited power supply.
I’m not meaning to be cute here, but who is always our biggest fan? Jesus.
When all else fails – and it will – Jesus is the only one who is always going to be there when we seek Him.
Both 1 Chronicles 16:11 and Psalm 105:4 say to “Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually.” It’s gotta be important if it’s in the Bible twice in separate places, right?
At this point in my life, I find myself unapologetically seeking Him pretty much all the time. On my walks, with my coffee, in my music, on my drives. It’s one of the reasons I write this blog. I’m trying to keep that balloon in the air. Because I want to know what love is, and I want Jesus to show me.
So, Wynonna, if you are listening (just kidding, y’all…), I understand now. You are seeking.
So am I. And I’m also finding. Just like I was promised.
Prayer for Unfailing Love
Lord, teach me to seek You with my whole heart, again and again.
Anchor me in what does not change.
Still got that Christmas energy but missed December’s blog? I got you. Here is your Christmas Presence.