“Now, therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.” (Exodus 33:13)
If our search for God is inspired by real love, we will not rest until we have come to know Him as He truly is. Mere admiration may be content to sit and daydream, but real love gets up and blazes a trail toward the actual knowledge of God. Such a relentless love in the heart of one seeker is of more heavenly consequence than all the placid intellect in the world. “Of all earthly music, that which reaches farthest into heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart” (Henry Ward Beecher).
Knowing God is very much more than an “informational” exercise. We don’t try to figure out God for the sake of curiosity; we seek to know Him for the sake of love. And the love that moves us to know God is every bit as real and robust as worldly love. “Love for the Lord is not an ethereal, intellectual, dreamlike thing; it is the intensest, the most vital, the most passionate love of which the human heart is capable” (Oswald Chambers).
Not all who say they love God have this passion, of course. But those who are lukewarm or haphazard will simply not find God. The good things that come from loving God are reserved for those who take Him seriously. “You will seek Me and find Me,” God said, “when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Only wholehearted love has the persistence required to find God. This kind of love is an active force, always compelling us to seek and to search and to know the other. It will never let us be content until we have entered deeply into relationship with our Beloved. Love will find the way to find God.
Love is bold and aspires to grandeur. Combining the qualities of reverence and courage, love dares to seek God Himself. The deepest love in the human heart will settle for nothing less. It will not cease from its quest until it has found and known the very Source from which it was created. “Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee; e’en tho’ it be a cross that raiseth me, still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee!”
“Love cannot be inactive; its life is a ceaseless effort to know, to feel, and to realize the boundless treasures hidden within its depths. This is its insatiable desire.” (Jan Van Ruysbroeck)