“Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).
As Isaiah continues to comfort God’s people following their being carried away into captivity (Isaiah 39:6-7; 40:1), not only does he remind them of their coming redemption from Babylon (Isaiah 48:20-22) and of the coming Messiah Who would come to deliver them from the greatest captivity of all, the captivity of their own sins (Isaiah 53:1-12), but then, as the opening verses above show, God pleads with them to restore their relationship with Him by seeking after Him (Isaiah 55:6-7).
As humans we tend to always be seeking after something to satisfy our needs and wants. We seek gold in caves. We seek knowledge from books. We seek love in relationships. We seek forgiveness when we have committed wrong. Solomon spoke about seeking out the meaningful purposes of life. He wrote, “And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven…” (Ecclesiastes 1:13). However, we can spend our time and effort seeking in the wrong direction. God’s people of Isaiah’s day had spent their time and effort seeking answers and guidance from idols. Through Isaiah, God said to them, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance” (Isaiah 55:2).
Instead, God pleads with His people to seek after Him: “Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you-- The sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:3). Unlike seeking satisfaction from idols, the satisfaction that God gives does not come at a great cost for us: “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1).
When one seeks after God, finding Him is not difficult. Seeking after God, doesn’t require great effort on our part like searching in the deep darkness of a cave or scaling the far reaching heights of a mountain. God has not placed such barriers to those who seek Him. Although we might think finding God is some mystery that we must use great effort to discover, God has provided a much easier path for those who seek Him. God says, ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
God has revealed Himself to us through His Word that we might find Him and understand Him. His Word is fully sufficient to accomplish this task for those who seek Him: “"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
As I seek out purpose and meaning in my life, I rejoice that I don’t have to go through great effort or cost to find these. I can easily find this in God. God has revealed Himself to me through His Word. I can discover Who He is and what His Will is for me by simply opening up the Bible and studying it. Today, I will seek God by studying and contemplating His Word!
“The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130).