the One you are seeking

This morning, I woke up early and decided I would do some writing.  There's so much I want to say, so many things I'm learning about the character of God, the purpose of His people, the love that surrounds us...

I could just keep all these things to myself and ponder them in my own heart.  But I can't imagine how that's possible.  It seems as though these realizations and truths are pushing against my heart, trying to escape.  It's like when you're in love with someone, you can't stop smiling, you can't stop talking about them.  It's like that.

So in my head I considered a few things I wanted to write about but when I sat down my phone bleeped and the verse of the day popped up on the screen, and it was so beautiful I decided I couldn't keep it to myself.

"I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.  Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the Lord Almighty.  Malachi 3:1

As soon as I read the words, "the Lord you are seeking..." I could see the multitude of earth's inhabitants reaching for this invisible God, searching for their lost treasure, on a quest for the one thing that will satisfy their unidentified desires.  Most of them don't know it but they're searching for God.

I see it every day; people reading self-help books, watching talk show hosts discussing the various "power within" ideas and then missing the point altogether.  They continue to grasp at the empty theories and broken promises that this world is offering them and they continue to live unsatisfied lives.  They are taught to seek their own strength for all of life's problems and then they continue to suffer.

But I've met the One they're really seeking.  I've borrowed His strength and I've experienced His love.   I know Who they really need and yet so many don't believe it.  But the promise of the verse in Malachi is that God will send His messenger and then suddenly the Lord will come!  In a way, we are also His messengers.  We, who carry the light of His love in our hearts, hold Him up as a torch for those in the darkness.  We have one job: to shine the light of Jesus' love on His hurting children.  One job.

And the written promise is that He will come.  The One they desire, will come.  Even if they don't know it's Him that they desire.  It doesn't matter.  He will come.

Never underestimate the seed that can be planted in the heart of a hurting child of God when you share what God has done for you.  And if you have no testimony about His grace towards you, then ask Him to show you.  Because His grace is like the gravity that keeps us on earth; it's one of those things that if it were removed, we wouldn't be able to function.  Just ask Him to show you and He will.

This verse has placed such a large smile in my spirit today.  It has given me such hope for the world.  It's true that women tend to be more sensitive, I suppose.  But my sensitivity to the pain of others is such a discouragement sometimes.  I feel helpless and hopeless and I can literally lose sleep over the hardships that so many people experience.  I looked at some photos yesterday that were bringing awareness to child abuse and my heart just broke and I wanted it to go away.  I wanted Jesus to come back so badly.  The thought of millions of children being wounded, so severely, on such a regular basis is so heartbreaking that I can hardly tolerate it.  And I cried out to God, asking Him why He won't just make it all stop.  Why won't He just come already?  Why can't He protect these innocent children?  He didn't answer me; He just cried with me.

But this verse is His promise to me.  He will come.