Seek ye First the Kingdom of God...

Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these things will be added unto you. 

This was a scripture that for years I was not fond of but now, now it is a scripture that can make me weep with sadness for not doing those things my entire life, but more so out of a Joy that I have a Father who loves me and all I have to do is Seek him First, and everything else I need in life will be added unto me.

This verse is a very powerful verse to me.  There are many facets of this verse that you can focus on and adopt as your own guidelines for life.   First thing is first.  God wants you to seek him for many reasons and we will try to touch on just a few of them here. 

God created man for someone to commune with.  He wanted someone to share his life with and have fellowship with, so when he says to seek him, it’s coming from a pure place or desire to be found.   This is not a game of Hide and Seek.  I guarantee you that if you diligently (put in effort) to find God, you will find him.

If you open your heart and mind, even on the drive to work, you will find God in everything you see.   Everything on this earth God created.  He created the person, who created the item you are looking at.   If you are driving down a farm road and look around you, you will see grass, animals, blue sky, a bright yellow sun, clouds, flowers, bugs, trees, leaves, people, cars, black top, paint, houses, livestock and so much more and every last one of those things were created by God.  He breathed life into their bodies and gave people the ability to create, design, farm and function among all the things that he gave us.  

That’s why I say it’s not hard to find God.  Just open your eyes in the morning and you have already found him. 

God wants us to seek him first.  So now that we have sought him out and have found him, now he wants us to do this first.  He wants us to crave him like some people crave coffee in the morning.  He wants us to open our eyes and say Good Morning God!!  Thank you Lord for this day you given me.  Thank you for having the chance to spend time with you again today.  He wants to be a vital need for us.

 A vital need is something we must have.  Like we must have air to breathe, we must have water to stay hydrated, we must have food to nourish our bodies and we must have God to be whole people.    God wants us to want him like it is something we have to have or our lives will surely end.    God says if we drink from his well, of his water, we shall never thirst again.   Meaning if we stay hydrated in the word of God, spend time in his presence, we will never want for anything, which falls into this verse.  Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and ALL these things will be added unto you. 

When we seek God, purposely look for him, and do so first, like it is more pressing than air itself, we will find him, we will find his desires for us.   He will bless you with the things you need and want in this life. 

Now, before I go any further, I need to say this.  Do not Seek God to get things.  Example, I want a new car so I am going to seek God and since I am seeking God I will be blessed with a new car.  No!  We are to seek God’s face and not God’s hand.   If you had a friend who every time you were around them they took from you.  They could take from you emotionally, financially or even spiritually but every time you were around them when you left them you felt depleted in some way, wouldn’t you start to feel used, and as if you were not worth anything of importance to them?  

God will feel the same way if you seek him just for things.   You might get them at first because God loves you and he has a heart that wants to give us the things we desire for.  But just as you would get tired of being the one giving and not receiving, so will God. 

So when you seek God, seek his face.  Seek the characteristics of God, seek to be filled with him, who he is and to feel the love of God.  Come to God with a pure heart not filled with motives or strategies, because just like you and your friend, God will know the difference.   I am not saying you can’t ask God for anything, because you should ask God for things that you want, but your time spent Seeking God should not be like a wish list for the Toy Store.

At first, you might not know how to Seek God and that’s OK.  When I started on this journey with God I had no idea how to “seek” God.   I wasn’t a big reader and always wanted to learn how to meditate, but never could get my brain and body to sit still and quiet for long enough.  I could sit and do nothing for an hour but as soon as I purposed myself to seek God a million thoughts would enter my mind, my phone would ring, I would have to use the bathroom or the dog would need to go out, and of course none of those things were happening five minutes before I purposed to seek God. 

What happens in these situations is the Devil knows that we are trying to connect with God.  That we, our hearts, want to have a deeper relationship and connection with God and know more, and when you bring light into darkness, the darkness is revealed.  

Satan doesn’t want you to spend time with God so he will send all of these things to start happening to disturb you and hopefully you will give up and not try again.  What I am going to ask you to do is do it, again and again and again. 

I don’t care if you sit still for five minutes, do it!!  Those five minutes will feel like the longest five minutes that ever existed, but I promise you that you can do it, and when you have achieved the five minutes you will feel accomplished and want to do more. 

In those five minutes what you do is kind of up to you.  I would suggest that you actually have a timer, so you know when the five minutes are up.  What I like to do is come before God with praise. 

My routine goes something like this.  First I take the dogs out, get a drink of water for myself,  grab my lap top, my Bible, my highlighter, a notepad, a pen, I tell my Best Friend that I am going to study, so she doesn’t think I am ignoring her and I turn off my phone.

I have a couple places in my home that I like to study and spend time with God.  I will go to the place I feel like going to that day and I just sit there.  Sometimes I will praise and thank God in quiet, that helps me to be still and silent, then there are days when I am speaking out loud to God.

When I first started to do this it was very difficult.   I would set my timer for five minutes so I didn’t have to keep looking at the clock.   I have a few things that I say to him each time I spend quiet time with him. I like to thank God for what he has given to me, I will name the things that come to mind. I will tell God how much I love him and how much I need him in my life.  I will invite God to come into every situation of my life and help me with it.  Most importantly I try to love on God.  I thank him for being him, for loving me even in my worst of times.  I try not to ask for anything in this time because God needs to know I am searching for his face and not his hand. 

There are times when I just sit completely quiet and breathe.  When I first started doing this, productively, I must say, a very dear person to me told me to just focus on breathing in positivity and breathing out negativity.  What I did, was I would breathe in, God loves me and breathe out I am not in fear, or whatever thing was bothering me at that time.  This truly helped me start to spend quiet time with God.  I then began to add in praying for people that would come to my heart and then I would ask God for help in my life.  

I am at the point now where I crave the quiet times I spend with God.  If I miss those times my day just doesn’t seem right.   You can do these things at your desk at work, over your lunchtime, in your car, just don’t close your eyes, but you can love on God and spend time with him anywhere you are.  

I probably shouldn’t tell people this but I will Thank God and love on God every time I use the bathroom.  I am a person who uses the bathroom a lot during the night, so I try every time to say I love you God, thank you God, and I know you are working in my life.  I believe this helps keep my connection to God open at all times.

These are just some of the ways that I have come to connect with God.  I don’t want you to think you have to do what I do, or make a law out of what I am suggesting.  You will find your own rhythm and what feels organic and helpful to you.  I promise you that once you start doing it, you will crave it.  I have stopped setting a timer, and I now will know when I am good and able to either move forward with my day, or move into studying and writing God’s word.

Seeking God is not a hard thing to do, but to a new person it might feel overwhelming, so do what you feel lead to do.  God will see your desire to spend time with him, he will know your heart and purpose for seeking him and he will give you the grace to do exactly that. 

When we spend more time with God and in his word we start to learn about him, like his characteristics, his righteousness, those things are transplanted and birthed into us. 

The word of God is life.  It is alive and no matter what situation you are in, when you go to God’s word, with an open heart, he will start to heal you right where you are.    You will begin to feel a change in your spirit and in your mind.  You will feel new, fresh, and re-energized, to face the mountain before you.   There truly is life in God’s word.   I didn’t believe it, when I would hear people say it, in my early days of walking with God, but I now can say I have experienced it for myself. 

When we seek God, we are doing ourselves a favor.  We are giving ourselves a gift. There is nothing else in this world that will change you the way that God can change you, and that’s why we seek him, because we need to change. 

When you start to seek God you will start to notice things around you changing as well.  Your desires might change your emotions might change, your outlook on things might change.  The person who used to annoy you beyond belief you find that you have more patience for.  These are the rewards or benefits from seeking God. 

We often want our circumstances to change, but God is not so worried about changing our circumstances, as he is about changing us.   Many times you will find that once you have started to change, your circumstances might not matter so much anymore.    This also is a process.  I don’t want to sell God or explain God like he is a magic trick.  Some people might notice things right away are different for them, but if you are like me, it will take some time.  Don’t be disappointed or discouraged if you are not seeing things happen overnight.  Remember, you didn’t get to the place you are overnight, so don’t expect to get out of the place you are overnight. 

This leads me to this thought…  Please don’t think that you are not able to seek God because of what you have done in your past, or even what you might have done today.  Our God, that would be my God and yours, is a God of forgiveness.  He is a God of a second, third, fourth, fifth and tenth chance.  Now, we obviously don’ t want to take advantage of that, but God knows that we are far from perfect, and that we need a covering, and that’s why he sent his son Jesus, to die for us.  

Now, that God will meet you right where you are mess and all.  God will meet you in the Bar, in the Club, in the Crack House, in the Restaurant, at your job, in your car or in the deep of the night.  There are no hours on God.  When you need him, he is there.   There is no pit too deep for the arm of God. 

He will come right into your life and give you Grace and Mercy, if you ask him too.   Like I said, the Matthew 6:33 Verse, Seek ye First the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and all these things will be added unto you was a verse that I wasn’t fond of for years but now, now, it has changed my life. 

This verse has become one of the verses I meditate on over and over again.  I have written this verse on bathroom mirrors and on post it notes all over my desk at work.   This is the one verse that I know has changed my life and will surely change yours!!!