"Seek, And Ye Shall Find"

As a girl in my early teens, confused by what I was being taught at school, I asked my RE teacher “What is the truth? Do we really come from apes or did God really create us like the Bible tells us?” His reply didn't directly answer my question but addressed a real and very much deeper need I didn't realize I had. And this is what he said: “There is a promise in the Bible and goes like this:

He continued: “Now remember, this is a promise from God Himself and when He makes a promise He always keeps it because He cannot lie”. And with this he left me to attend to another student in class. Into my heart that day a precious seed was sown and for a few years lay dormant until circumstances in my life cultivated the perfect type of soil in which the seed would germinate and grow.

In my later teens I went through a very long and deep valley; so deep there was nowhere else left to look for help but up! Standing on a cliff edge on the north coast of Jersey contemplating suicide I cried out to God: “Somebody told me there was a promise in the Bible that said ‘I would find you if I would search with all my heart'. Well dear God, if you are who I believe you are, you know that I really want to know the truth about why I am here. You know just how I really want to know you. I am going to search and search until I find you, and when I do, I know I will have found what I have been longing for so much. Please help me, dear God. Amen.” It seemed to me that I was the loneliest person on earth, with a longing in my heart for God that nobody else could possibly understand. Was I looking far beyond the boundaries set for me? Was I being over presumptuous? Not at all, because I have since learned that -

I would search for Him and find Him on my own if need be and I didn't mind about that. My search was both exciting and desperate at the same time knowing I was so near and yet so very far away. The Bible of course is the very best place to go for information about God, and so I began in earnest to search the Scriptures and read with fascination from “page one”, as it were; The Book of Genesis. However when I got into the book of Exodus I began reading about things I didn't understand and so I took up the New Testament to read about Jesus who I understood to be the Son of God. It was then that I began to learn what it was that was keeping me away from God whom I longed to know. It was me - and my sin. Would there be an answer from God to address this great problem of mine? After all, God was Holy and I, nothing but a miserable wretch!

All of my free time was spent reading my Bible and every time I picked up my precious little book it was as if I was about to read a letter from a far away loved one. Early one morning I sat in my car and read the first two chapters of the Gospel of John before heading off to work. At lunchtime I paid a visit to my Grandparents and while seated in my Gran's armchair I ate my little packed lunch and they ate at the table. From where they were sitting they would not notice that I was reading her little Bible that she kept close by and so I lifted it and turned to John ch3 to continue where I had left off earlier. I read until I came to v16:

My attention was so gripped by these beautiful words that I was unaware that Gran was talking to me and after getting no response she had come over to where I was to see if I was okay. It was then that she discovered her open Bible in my hands, and the truth was out! Consequently the rest of their meal was abandoned to assist me in my search for God.

In the weeks and even months to follow, they patiently pointed me to the Scriptures in answer to the deluge of my questions. There I learned the reason why the Precious Son of God came: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” 1 Timothy 1: 15, and why He had to die on a cruel Roman cross; He died as a substitute on the cross – for me: From the Scriptures I learned that “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost” Luke 19: 10. There was no doubt about it; I certainly knew what it was like to be lost. You can be sure that the one who is truly seeking after God with all their heart will be found by the One whose business it is to seek and to save the lost ones. This is a Biblical principal upon which we can confidently rest.

And so late one afternoon in November 1979, by faith I understood that I was the sinner whom Christ died to save and repented of the sin that had separated me from a loving God whom I longed to know. I rose up “a new creation, old things were passed away; behold, all things were become new” 2 Corinthians 5: 17. At last I knew I was in touch with the living God and had a personal relationship with His beloved Son who is alive in heaven this day. To me this was no longer presumption but a blessed reality. I could now identify with the blind man of John ch9. He had been given the gift of sight after a lifetime in darkness. As a result he was subjected interrogation by the religious rulers of that day. They tried to accuse the One who had done this marvelous work upon him as a sinner like all others, and they wanted the man to say something that would condemn his Healer. However the man who knew very little of the One who had just given him his sight knew one thing for sure and exclaimed “whether He be a sinner or not, I know not: but this one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind now I see” John 9: 25. Of this he was certain and his appreciation of the Lord Jesus grew with every passing moment.

On my homeward journey in my car that evening with my soul full of unspeakable joy I did something I had never done before; I sang with all my heart the words of the only hymn I knew at that time; the beautiful words of Amazing Grace beginning another chapter in my life – And, well, that's another story!