Seek and Find

Proverbs 8:17

“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.”

The Simplicity of Wisdom

This verse appears to require little explanation. Perhaps we should consider it a blessing that there is such simplicity in wisdom. There is also wisdom in simplicity. It makes it easy when something isn’t difficult to understand. Put simply, “God loves those who love Him.” While Scripture teaches and Jesus demonstrates that God offers His love to this fallen world unconditionally, God’s love has to be received, and it has to be reciprocated.

How to Love?

When as a teenager I found myself falling in love with my wife all I wanted to do was spend time alone with her. This was difficult for much of the year because I was serving at sea. The long absences made our time together even more precious. When I was home on leave and Marilyn wasn’t at work we spent as much time in each other’s company as we could. The longer I spent with Marilyn the deeper my love for her became; to the point that we knew we wanted to spend our lives together. We were married on 14 April 1979.

Progressing from Honeymoon

For our honeymoon Marilyn and I spent a week in the beautiful island of Guernsey, where I grew up. Walking together one day through the quaint streets of St Peter Port I was suddenly and completely overwhelmed with love for my wife. It was an incredible experience, a unique honeymoon blessing.

Every honeymoon has to end, but love between marriage partners should continue to grow. As love grows it changes. If it does not then there is a risk it may fail. After thirty-three years of marriage our love is very different to how it was during those carefree days of youth.

Equally, it is essential that our relationship with God progresses from the honeymoon period when we first came to know Him. It is vital that our love for God grows and develops, strengthening our relationship with Him. It doesn’t matter how far we have traveled on our faith journey. Regardless of how much we think we have grown, we still need to be overwhelmed by God’s love every day. But in addition to us receiving love from God, I truly believe that Proverbs 8:17 is stating that God desires to be overwhelmed by our love for Him.

How can we show God that we love Him? The answer is the second part of the verse:

Those that seek me early shall find me.

Why early? Because setting aside distractions and committing to spending time alone with God early each day shows that our love for Him is more important to us than anything else in our lives. Perhaps only then will we realize how important we are to Him. The Father of Jesus loves us very much.

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