SEEKING AND FINDING
‘Seek, and ye shall find.’
Those who, in this world, seek for glory and honour and prosperity and a great name, are doomed to failure and disappointment; they seek, but they do not find. They who hunt after happiness, whether they hunt for it in pleasure, or in business, in gaiety or in retirement, in study or in dissipation, seek, but do not find. But Christ tells us a different tale—that there is something which we shall find, if we seek after it. What is it?
I. The promise applied.—We might apply the promise to a great number of things—comfort under sorrow, cheerfulness and contentment under disappointment, light and guidance in the dark days of doubt and despair, hope and trust and confidence in God when all earthly things begin to fail, peace to the troubled conscience, pardon to the sin-stricken soul, hope in an after life. In all these ways, and in numbers of others, we shall experience the truth of our Saviour’s promise, ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’
II. New Testament examples.—We might interpret these words of Christ to mean something more. We might interpret them by numberless passages which we find scattered over the Bible, where ‘seeking God’ and ‘seeking after God’ occur again and again. If we interpret seeking God and seeking Christ as bearing the same meaning, we shall find, from examples in the New Testament, that our Saviour’s assertion is absolutely true, and that at least whilst He was living upon earth none ever sought Him and found Him not. (Note the cases of the shepherds, Simeon, the Wise Men, the Magdalene, etc.)
III. Saints and martyrs who have found Him.—But not to these alone, but to an unaccountable number of saints and martyrs, and prophets and priests, and kings and wise men—nay more, to an unaccountable number of humble and holy men and women before and since, to children of every age and degree, to the needy and poverty-stricken, to the unfortunate and the miserable, to the sorrowful and to the unhappy, have the words of our Saviour been fulfilled—‘Seek, and ye shall find’—seek Me in all times of joy and of sorrow, in all times of pleasure and of disappointment—seek Me in times of prosperity and of poverty; seek Me in the house of mourning and in the house of feasting, and ye shall find Me—ye shall find Me whom your soul loveth.
IV. Your personal experience.—You have followed Him first of all at a distance, but gradually and gradually you have drawn nearer; you have pressed closer and closer; and when, unperceived by any, you have ventured to touch the hem of your Saviour’s garment, His words to you have cheered you and comforted you—‘Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.’ And they have been echoed and re-echoed within you till they have been the only words that you have heard, and you have at last received Him into your soul; you have found Him to be your Saviour and your God!
Finding, following’, keeping, struggling,
Is He sure to bless?
‘Angels, Martyrs, Prophets, Virgins,
Answer, Yes.’
The Rev. Edmund Fowle.
Illustration
‘Success in life, as men call success, is, beyond question, the lot of very few among us. Where one succeeds a thousand do not! A thousand will start in life with the same aims and objects, with the same chances and opportunities—and where one succeeds the 999 will fail. As in the old Corinthian games all competitors would run, or wrestle, or fight, but one only would gain and receive the prize. And this not at all because the 999 are wanting in steadiness or industry, or boldness, or judgment, but simply because it is the natural order of things—many run the race, but one obtaineth the prize. And disappointment comes even to those few who do succeed, and therefore success does not bring with it the happiness which I suppose we all look for. Some of you may have read an old novel, in which the author very skilfully portrays not only the disappointment, but the utter failure and unhappiness of the man whom he had made the discoverer of the “ Philosopher’s Stone” and the “ Elixir vitæ.” ’