THE SEARCH FOR GOD

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1888

THE SEARCH FOR GOD.

If we would by searching find out God, we must ask him first to search and to find us. He knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves, and he knows whether we truly desire to find him. He who begins Psalm 139 with the words, "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me," ends it with a prayer that God would still more search him and know him (verse 23). He wished to lay his heart open to God, well knowing that it was already before him, and that the darkness of willful concealment, as well as the light of candid confession, were "both alike" to that all-seeing Eye (verse 12). Thus the psalmist knew something of God; he recognized that before Him with whom we have to do all things are naked and open for God had taught him this great truth in his deepest heart, and was ever teaching it more and more in answer to his prayer.

When God has thus searched the heart, the man is no longer left in utter ignorance, standing aloof before an unknown God; he has had dealings which he can never forget with his Maker, and having known God as the Searcher, he cannot rest till the Holy Spirit of God reveals him also as the Cleanser of the heart. To know God thus, we must know him in Jesus Christ, who came to reveal him to man. Enlightened by this glorious revelation, we can find God because God has found us.—Selected.