Why God-Seeking is the only way that works

I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately. Partly because of this 15 Weeks to Love campaign, but also partly because, well, I’m a woman. I have questions running through the back of my mind like, “what do I want out of life?” and “what will make me happy?” These questions can have positive impacts on our lives, but let’s face it, they are the epitome of self-seeking. It can’t be a coincidence that I find myself struggling with them this week. The problem is, I really can’t answer the questions, so I find myself getting depressed and sinking down into myself. "I don’t even know what I want?!" (typical woman). I can think of a handful of areas I may have pursued in life if I hadn’t fallen in love and had crazy-cool kids. I may have been a missionary in Africa, I may have pursued singing and song-writing, I may have pursued my interest for language and would be able to speak fluently in several languages by now. Being married and having kids didn’t keep me from these things, I WANTED to be married and have a family. I’m not sure why I think about what I would have done if I wasn’t. But even if I was able to pursue those things now, with a husband and kids, I’m still not sure they would make me happy.

So last night, I finally decided to ask God to come in and help me with all these thoughts and struggles. When I did, I realized God was showing me that no matter what I choose, I’ll never really be happy or fulfilled unless it’s what God wants for me.  What I TRULY want is more of God and to fulfill His calling and purposes for my life. This is the only way that works.

Let me explain. We know that following our every desire and whim doesn’t actually make us happy. Look at Hollywood. The rich and famous either have or can obtain everything they want but they’re not actually happy. You can’t argue with me on this, we all know it.

But sometimes what we do is swing the pendulum to other side, thinking that if we live for OTHERS (or Others-Seeking), we’ll be truly satisfied. Let me explain why this doesn’t work. When I live to serve others, ignoring my desires in order to help someone else (we call this ‘shoving it down’) my desires tend to get hungrier and hungrier until one day I snap and do something crazy with all the desire I have inside me. Shoving your own desire down or ignoring it does not make it go away. It starves your desire and makes it uncontrollable.

When I seek God with my desires, or when I’m God-seeking, do you know what happens? My desires don’t get shoved down, they get brought to the surface, they get filled with His Spirit, and HIS desires start to take shape in me. My desires become the desires of my Beloved. I don’t have to control them or contain them or push them down, because they are Good and Fulfilling and Satisfying.

Do you see the difference? I can’t ignore my soul-searching questions. Maybe I can for a time by distracting myself with something else. But they’ll keep coming back. And if I keep ignoring them, my once-healthy desire may lead me astray because of its desperation to fulfill itself. But when I bring my questions and desires to God, instead of getting shoved down, they get amplified in such a way that I realize I will never be satisfied unless I’m walking out my desires WITH My Love right beside me.

Being in love may help us understand this concept. I really want to go to Venice someday, really, really, really. But I wouldn’t imagine going by myself, I want to go with the love of my life! The trip would be infinitely better if I went with my husband, enjoying everything together, making beautiful memories, sight-seeing with two perspectives, and getting to taste two meals at each restaurant instead of one. Isn’t it always better when we’re together? If I went by myself, I could still have fun, but there would be a tinge of sadness in each moment that I couldn’t share my joy with someone else.

This is what God does with my desires. When I bring them to God, He seems to actually intensify my desires to show me that they will only be satisfied if I walk them out WITH HIM.

Sometimes this is painful or uncomfortable. I have to be vulnerable and express my heart, I have to allow Him into areas I may have ignored for a long time, or things I may be afraid or ashamed of, but I have to do it. Because, as you can see, God-seeking is the only way that works.

When our service to others is actually selfish

Have you ever found yourself serving someone else or doing a nice deed for someone, and then realize that you actually did it for yourself? (You’ll know if afterwards you feel empty or even disappointed.) Or have you ever received a gift from someone, or had someone do something nice for you, and it seemed weird or out of place? When I analyze these situations, sometimes it’s because the person wanted to help me out of a desire to fill their own needs, not out of an overflow of love for me.

We do this. We serve and serve and get ourselves tired. Why are we tired? Because we’re not serving in love. We’re serving because we’re seeking our own approval, our own accomplishment, our own satisfaction at a job well done.

I hate to break it to you, I hate to break it to myself, but this is self-seeking.

Should I stop feeding the poor? No. Should I stop serving others? No. But at the same time, can I at least look at why I do the things I do?

Sometimes our acts of kindness or thinking of others is actually selfish. Ouch.

Is it better to not serve or think of others? No, I still think it’s better to serve, but be careful. If you get yourself all tired out for God (also known as Christian-burn-out), you’ll end up full of regret, possibly far away from God, and maybe even confused about why people don’t repay all your good deeds.

We see this in the church all the time.

Because we live in fear, not love. We try to follow the Word, do the right thing, serve others, etc, from a place of fear. If we actually loved, we’d serve with a different attitude. We’d be content, at rest, and not constantly searching for the next person to help and rescue and save. We’d be patiently waiting for instructions from God, AND since we’d be resting, we would be free to hear his direction and ready to go when it comes.

I don’t know how not-being-selfish turned into rest. Something which, by the way, God commands for us. It’s even in the 10 commandments. Weird. It’s right in there along with murder, stealing, coveting, adultery….how weird to also command rest. Maybe it’s important.

You would think the opposite of SELF-seeking would be OTHERS-seeking. But it’s not. The opposite of SELF-seeking is GOD-seeking, and there is an infinite amount of rest in that.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to "love God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Luke 10:27) He could have just said love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, but he repeated himself and added all those extra words because he was emphasizing the point. It was important! He said the second commandment is to "love your neighbor as yourself." So if our main focus and goal is to serve others, I think we’re actually missing a big piece. The only solution to self-seeking is to love God with all our strength, or in other words, be God-seeking, and THEN to love others as ourselves. It’s interesting that He doesn’t tell us to take our love for God and also love others with that same love. He says to love others as we would love ourselves. God is still priority here. So if I’m serving someone else, I really want to look at my heart and ask myself if I’m serving them because I want some kind of recognition, because it seems nice or right, or if I’m serving them because I love God so much!

It’s weird. I know. Go ahead and keep on serving, serving is good, but be aware of your heart. Is your love for God consuming all of your mind and soul and heart and strength? Because that should be priority, and it’s our only way to truly combat selfishness.

Week 7: Love is Not Self-Seeking

I love this word seeking. It’s implying more than just selfishness. The seeking to me implies a constant search, one that is never satisfied. If I’m self-seeking, I’m constantly looking for things to make me happy, to complete me, to fill my needs. I am not content or at peace, instead I need to constantly fill my own desires at every moment. This is selfishness, yes. Putting my own needs first. But there is more here. Sometimes we can excuse selfishness because it’s necessary to life and makes sense. For instance, take the airplane safety drill: you must put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. I find this funny, as if I need to be told in a sure-death scenario to take care of myself before helping someone else. This is one rule I’m sure to follow. I’m positive I’d put my own mask on and get myself ready for impact, and then IF I had time leftover to spare I MIGHT think about the other passengers on the plane. But even then, probably not. I’d most likely think of my family, how much I’LL miss them, how said I WILL BE that I don’t get to live the rest of my life. Right? I’ll be thinking of myself, and if you’re a normal human being, you probably would too.

The Greek word in 1 Corinthians 13:5 has really got me thinking about the word seeking. The actual word “zeteo” is not only I seek or search for, but also desire, demand and require. That’s interesting. Some people “require” things from you and it makes you feel uncomfortable. Sometimes they demand. Sometimes we require people to treat us a certain way, or even demand it. The definition of the word is this: to seek by inquiring; to investigate, to reach a binding resolution; to search, "getting to the bottom of a matter.” It’s kind of like not giving up until you get what you want. And in this case, the “what you want” is something for yourself, for your own gain or pleasure. There is a strong amount of effort shown here, it’s a seeking, a striving, a continual trying to obtain “the things of its own”.

We’re all basically selfish. We know that. If you don’t know it, you’re probably not a parent. But someday if you ARE a parent, you will find out how selfish you are. Recently a good friend of mine had a baby and blogged about her discovery in this area. Check it out. I love it because she’s a really practical and compassionate person. So she knew what it was going to be like, and it still came as a shock. It always does.

We’re born selfish, and there are probably some scientific reasons for this, like in order to stay alive and survive we need these instincts. A baby pretty much needs to cry to inform you of all of its needs (and then some). This is definitely self-seeking. They usually don’t stop until you’ve given them what they need. But this is important to their well-being. If they never cried, we may not know when to feed them, or when to stop feeding them. You get the idea. There is an amount of self-seeking that is healthy, like eating when you’re hungry, or drinking when you’re thirsty, otherwise, you’ll die.

But this doesn’t excuse all the rest of our selfishness. You know, the other 99.999% of the times we’re self-seeking. I would say for most of us in America, all of our basic needs are being met on a daily basis. We aren’t usually going hungry (skipping a meal once in a while because of too much work does not count), most of us have shelter and beds and transportation and healthy water and a whole plethora of other stuff on top of this list that we think we need but don’t really need in order to survive. 

I don’t think Paul is saying “Love doesn’t eat when it’s hungry”. I think Paul is talking about something much deeper and more meaningful. He’s saying “Love isn’t constantly searching to please its own desires. It’s content, thankful, and it’s calm and peaceful enough to see when others have a need, ready to be able to fill that need if God desires Love to do so.” Love is not consumed with itself. It’s not consumed with getting enough done in the day so that it feels accomplished, it’s not consumed with making as much money as possible, it’s not consumed with making sure it eats better than everyone else from fear of cancer, it’s not consumed with plans for the future, worries about tomorrow, events and gatherings and groups and getting in all those yoga classes because my body isn’t what it used to be. Love is not consumed with anything but loving and pleasing God, therefore it’s ready to be patient, to serve, to rejoice with truth, to not lose faith, to always hope, to always endure because it’s not caught up in all the other stuff that we strive for day after day, moment after moment, that ironically drags us far away from what we really need and want! Love is a movement, love is messy, but love is also At Rest because love is not striving to fulfill itself. And the funny part is, once we stop striving to fulfill ourselves, we’ll actually be in a place where we can be fulfilled. “Cease striving, and know that I am God.” This verse in Colossians says it all. God doesn’t just say “stop worrying”. God also adds “I’m God. You’re not. You can rest now.” Love is Not Self-Seeking because “Love is At Rest.” That’s my goal for this week: to be at rest. Will you join me?