Seek The Lord

Psalm 105:1-8

In various places and times throughout the world there have been gold rushes, people packing up and leaving their homes to go out in search of gold, and hopefully strike it rich.  Two famous ones in the United States were the California Gold Rush from 1848-1855, and the Alaska Gold Rush from 1896-1899. People often left their families and sold their belongings to travel and then buy equipment, searching for something they thought would make them rich and happy.  Our Scripture passage for today tells us of something we should be seeking, something of infinitely more value than gold, and that is the Lord, Himself. Let’s take a look, and see what the Lord will teach us from His Word.

Psalm 105 is a fairly long psalm, and our passage today focuses on just the opening few verses.  Here the author of this psalm instructs his readers to both seek the Lord and to call upon His Name.  Calling upon the Name of the Lord is to both pray to and worship in the Name of Yahweh. The people of Israel, from the earliest days following their exodus from Egypt up until the captivity in Babylon, had been prone to falling away and worshipping idols and foreign gods.  The psalmist tells his readers to call upon the Name of Yahweh, to praise Him, and to worship Him (vs. 1-3).

Today God’s Name is used as a curse word more often than not. However, it is a sacred Name. It is a Name that we can turn to for help or protection.  King David said that trusting in the Name of the Lord was better than trusting in chariots or horses, the powerful military equipment of his day (Psalm 20:7). We are as safe in the Name of the Lord as we would be in a fortress tower (Proverbs 18:10). One day all of creation will bow to the Name of Jesus, God’s only begotten Son (Philippians 2:10-11).  It will no longer be a Name that anyone will mock!

Sometimes, though, God seems far away from us.  We call upon His Name, but still feel alone. Where are You, God?  I call out for help, but feel like He is nowhere to be found. It is then that our psalmist says we need to seek Him (vs. 3-4).  The people who went out following these gold rushes would have been sadly disappointed if they expected to find the ground just covered with nuggets of gold. They had to search for it, putting in great effort. That’s what God wants us to do for Him. We can’t just snap our fingers and the Lord appears at our beck and call, like a butler.  We need to persist in our seeking of Him.

The most important way to seek after God is by carefully and diligently studying His Word, and learning from godly pastors and Bible teachers. Another way to help us seek God more closely is by looking at what God has done for us and others in the past.  That is one thing that our psalmist writer of this psalm has done, by reviewing to the readers all of what God did for His people when He brought them out from Egypt.

The prophet Isaiah, in speaking God’s Word, said that we need to seek God and turn away from all of our wicked ways.  If we return to Him, He will forgive and pardon our sins (Isaiah 55:6-7). Jesus, when speaking in His Sermon on the Mount, said that if we seek God, we will find Him, if we knock at His figurative door, He will answer (Matthew 7:7-8).  God has promised that He will reward those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Only a comparatively few of those who went in search of gold in the many gold rushes ever struck it rich.  Some did find a little, but not enough to make it worth their efforts, and many found nothing. When we diligently seek the Lord as we would for gold or other valuable gems, we are promised in His Word that we will find Him. No one who ever seeks Him will come away empty handed.