“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.” – Hosea 6:3 {ESV}
Pressing on…the one calling whereby many who read this have left off too soon. Pressing on to know Christ deeply and fully – the task which is never completed in this life. Pressing on through agony and obscure points along our paths. Pressing on seemingly alone at times, yet, in reality, with others who press on in the same. Pressing on through delayed answers to heartfelt prayers and against deferred provisions which we think we cannot do without. Hungering to know and to understand and to see and to be made fully wise – despising our weaknesses and limitations while learning that we must trust God also with even these. Hosea tells us above that when we press forward in Christ to know Christ there will be a certainty of His appearing to us that is akin to the assumed daily rising of the sun and the predictable seasonal rains of the Spring. Did anyone fret last night that there would be no sunrise this morning? Of course not. Was there any fear in last December’s cold and dark that it would remain so through April and May, never again to be offered warmth and light? We have learned that days and seasons have their purposes and find their ends, giving way to something new. We press on through those days and seasons, moving toward something fresh and new. And so it is with our journey of faith.
Today we gather in buildings with steeples and pulpits, pews and chairs, bibles and offering baskets. We will sing and listen and pray and preach as we press on together. Most of all, embedded at the core of all our activity there is this sure sense of a patient waiting and a committed pressing on. We who have been filled find ourselves still not quite satisfied. We who are known to Him wish to know Him more. Citizens of an invisible Kingdom have been made to love the invisible King and we press on for another day until the unseen becomes revealed. As for me, I am blessed to be pressing on today. “Let us know…”, we read above. “Let us press on to know the Lord,” we are encouraged. As we do so, all else which we know in this journey finds its proper place.
When I remain fixed on the fact that knowing Him…just pressing in and on to know HIM…is the only objective, the scenery becomes more and more incidental.
I pray that conviction is never tested through the darkest of my fears. Though, any test won’t make it any less true.