Seek

Seek first the kingdom of God

And His righteousness.

Seek and you shall find.

Knock and the door shall be opened.

Ask and it shall be given.

And I’m not talking about

Sunday-morning-seeking.

Or just when I’m desperate-seeking.

Or when-I-find-the-time-seeking.

But a lifestyle of persistence.

A poor widow begging daily

For justice. I am talking about

Seeking like you just got poisoned

And have 24 hours to find the antidote.

Hard seeking. Tear-soaked

Seeking. Fist-clenched-seeking

Hands-outstretched-seeking.

What is more lovely than sunrises?

The God who paints them.

Who is more lovely than the delicate

Arch of my wife’s jawline?

The God who sculpted it.

Who is more lovely than

The deepest longings of my heart,

And the poems I write, trying to

Articulate unutterable groanings?

The God who authored me

Before I ever authored anything.

Who is more worthy of all-out

Break-neck pursuit?

I want to die running. I want

To die

Running

Hard, out of

Breath

Spin-moving

Around death

Like those stories of Greek messengers, who

After running double marathons,

Delivered the message gasping,

And promptly died on the spot,

Because they gave every last

Molecule of everything to get there. Yes.

Everyone who seeks, finds.

No one who persists in searching

Shall leave with empty hands.

Oh taste and see

That the Lord is Good.

There is nothing better than God,

Therefore there is no better full time occupation

Than the pursuit of God. His heart

Full of mysteries, like mist against

The breast of mountain. Like fingers

Against the lips of sunrise.   

To seek and keep seeking,

Whatever that means. My life

Is spilling away, through my fingers

And I have to decide how I will spend

Every speeding second.

So seek. Like an explorer.

Like Magellan, when he

Circumnavigated the globe

At the end

He was reduced to a barely

Breathing skeleton, lost 90% of his crew,

So utterly consumed in his seeking, it flayed

The flesh right off His bones.  

And he bore the scars of it

For life.

Like that. That kind of intensity.

Circumnavigating the infinite,

A voyage that never ends.

Seek. Grope around in the dark

Until your fingers encounter

The face of love,

The lips and teeth

The cheekbones

The eyelashes

The breath

Of Almighty God

Who waits

To become

The consuming object

Of my passion

Because He

Deserves it.