Hosea 5:15
I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.

Don’t wait until you are “in affliction” to seek God’s face. Keep your eyes fixed on Him, seek His face daily and ask Him for His guidance. If you are feeling “afflicted” today I would encourage you to seek His face this morning.

A few years ago Bill and I were on a cruise and one of our excursions was scuba diving. Now, the only real set back is that I have asthma and it is really not something they suggest you do with asthma but I really wanted to give it a try. If you have never been scuba diving it doesn’t really seem as though it should be a big deal to put a tank on, pop the mouth piece in and dive in and breathe! What’s the big deal, right? Well, the “big deal” is that everything in your brain says, “you are under water – don’t breathe!” And when you have asthma (thus the reason they tell you not to scuba dive) your brain doesn’t say anything it screams: “Don’t try to breathe you are under water and you are going to die!” Well, our instructor was amazing and there were a few of us trying to get acclimated to going under water and breathing, one lady just couldn’t get passed the panic so he came over to work with me: he grabbed both of my hands and motioned for me to go under water, once under the water he motioned for me to keep my eyes on him and then he started making motions for me to slowly breathe in and out, breathe in and breathe out until I could relax, after a few minutes I was fine.

Life is like that even though it isn’t just a few minutes under water. There are times that I know my eyes need to be so fixed on God that He can tell me to “breathe in, breathe out.” Life can be so overwhelming, trust me I know, and that is when your full focus needs to be on Him, don’t look to the right or to the left of Him, just seek His face. We need to ask God daily for His guidance for our lives. Our peace comes from Him, our Hope is found in His face, and the great thing is you know He already has a plan for you, (Jeremiah 29:11 – “plans to give you a hope and a future”) Don’t put your trust in other people or your job, put all your trust in Him and know that He will bring it to pass. People are people and they can let you down and jobs are not your security because any job can be gone tomorrow. He’s got your back and He holds the keys to your future, seek Him!

God’s desire is to guide you and keep you through all that you face on a daily basis. Nothing is too big for Him and nothing catches Him by surprise. The peace, comfort and hope you will find in His face will give you the strength to make it through another day and it will also guide you into all that you can be. It isn’t just all about when we are struggling, it is also the only way to handle the mountain top experience, in fact we may even need more guidance when things are great so our faith remains in Him and Him alone! We can learn a lot from the old testament characters like Daniel and Joseph; they trusted God and sought Him no matter what their circumstances were. Life is a journey and you don’t have to face anything alone, God’s desire is to walk with you every step of the way if you will just seek Him.

Quote: “You become what you think about.” Earl Nightingale