While He Is Near – The Kingdom Curriculum XV (3)

While He Is Near

The great commandment

And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and the first commandment.” Matthew 22:37, 38

Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Isaiah 55:6

Don’t Miss the Window of Opportunity

There is a kind of “opportune moment” for seeking the Lord. The Scriptures indicate that seeking God is in part a matter of timing. David agrees with Isaiah that there is an opportune time for seeking God, after which we simply miss it (Ps. 32:6). You know how it goes: you go to bed fully intending to get up early, to spend time in prayer and seeking the Lord in His Word, then to ease into the day and go forth renewed in the Lord. But you hit the snooze button two or three times. Then the sun’s up and, well, there’s the paper in the driveway. The morning news shows are on; email has arrived overnight; and someone somewhere else in the house has a radio going or breakfast on the way.

So much for seeking the Lord. The Lord, we know, will meet us in the solitude, when we draw aside, as Jesus often did, to show our love for Him by seeking Him early, so that we will be better prepared to seek Him constantly throughout the day. Well, it’s not that God has gone away; it’s just that we are so easily distracted from the things that matter most that we can easily miss that opportune moment when He is especially near.

Or was that someone else I was describing? The best way to avoid things that distract us from seeking the Lord is simply to avoid them. What better time to do this than early in the day, even before dawn, in the stillness of your chosen special place? Set a time that you think will be optimum for meeting the Lord while He is near. Then, work toward it gradually, setting your alarm an hour later, to begin with, then, a week at a time, working backwards by increments of 15 minutes a week until you reach that optimum time. Then, when you get there, be ready to meet Him. Have a psalm or two to use in praising Him. Open your hymnal and silently sing through a few praise hymns. Bring a list of items to pray for specific to that day’s needs (Matt. 6:34). Then settle into the Lord, while He is near and none of your distractions are.

Seeking the Lord takes full and resolute determination. But if we love Him, that will come easily–and early–enough.

Learn to love God more by meditating in His Law daily. You can order your copy of The Law of God today and take up this discipline with joy. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.