Earnestly Seeking

   When it comes down to it, the Christian Life is about motive.  As the scripture tells us, God looks at the heart; He looks past the display and the drama and looks into the motive of each one of us.  This is how He saw the king in the least of the sons of Jesse; how He saw the great leader of Israel in the bumbling figure of Moses; how He found conquering strength in the weakness of Gideon; and how he found a rock in the unpredictable actions of Peter.  God looks inside, not outside.  He looks at the motives behind the actions, not just at the actions themselves.
   God recognizes earnestness, and I think that it's something He prizes.  The term shows up in several scriptures, in situations befitting its definition of "characterized by a serious and intense state of mind".  When David is on the run from Saul, hiding in the wilderness of Judah, he sings:

"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." -Psalms 63:1

   Serious and intense are two good ways to describe David's need here.  Desperate and alone, on the run for his life, he is probably seeking God about as seriously and intently as he ever has before.  Of course, David's earnest need for God was not limited to his trials.  The Bible tells us that David was "a man after God's own heart," meaning his heart - his motivation - was in line with God's heart.  David is a great Biblical figure, and great man in general, because he earnestly yearned for who God was and is.
   Isaiah also expressed the deep need for God that comes from an earnest heart.  His motive was to speak what God spoke, and see prosperity brought to Israel again.  He ached to see Israel return to the Lord, to love God as he loved God.

"My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you." -Isaiah 26:9

   You see, God can use an earnest heart.  In fact, He requires it of us if we are to be used by Him, to do great things in His name.  He requires that we seek after him seriously and intently.  God can't make much use of a flippant or thoughtless heart.  If we aren't after what He's after, yearning for him and earnestly seeking Him, how will we even know where He's going, or what He's up to?  If we don't want Him above all other things, there will be times when we just plain miss Him.
   I like this idea of earnestly seeking God because it feels like the best way to describe how I feel about the Lord.  There are other ways I could describe my need for Him.  I could say that I love Him so much that at times I don't know what to say.  I could say that I want so much more of Him that at times I don't know what to do.  I would like to think that my love for the Lord is so intense that I could find myself in a state like Jesus found himself in the Garden of Gethsemane as he waited to be delivered up to death.

"And being in an agony he [Jesus] prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."   --Luke 22:44

   I can't even imagine what this would feel like: to be in such agony, such a feverish state of mind and spirit, that sweat pours off of my face.  I believe that in this instance, Jesus is on the verge of sweating blood, which is why it says "his sweat became like drops of blood".  That is intense.  That is serious.  And that is how I want to go after God, with such intensity that I could sweat blood.