Seeking the Face of God
A. Maclaren, D. D. Psalm 27:8 When you said, Seek you my face; my heart said to you, Your face, LORD, will I seek. There appears to be a good deal of autobiography in this psalm, David in his backward glance fixes on two objects. The past as illumined by God's favour, and the past as his own wherein he strove to love and serve God. And from both he draws encouragement to hope that God will be the same, and he humbly resolves that He will be, I. GOD'S VOICE TO THE HEART — "Seek ye My face," The expression is of course figurative. But the most spiritual conception of God is reached, not by a pedantic scrupulosity in avoiding material representations, but by an unhesitating use of these, and the remembrance that they are representations. The unsubstantial abstraction of the metaphysical God, described only in terms as far removed as may be from human analogies, for fear of being guilty of "anthropomorphism," never helped or gladdened any human soul. It is but a bit of mist through which you can see the stars shining. But the God whom we need and can know and love, comes to us in descriptions Cast in the mould of humanity, and loses none of His purely Spiritual essence thereby. "The face of the Lord" means the same as "the name of the Lord," and both mean the manifested character of God. If these things be true, then we may learn what it is to "seek His face." We do not need long and painful search, as for something lost in dim darkness, in order to find the sun. We do not need to seek the sun with lanterns, nor to grope after God if haply we may find Him. A man need only come out of his dark hiding-place to find it. If he will but turn his face to the light, the glory will brighten his features and make glad his eyes. And, in like manner, to seek God's face is no long, dubious search, nor is He hard to be found. Endeavour, then, to keep vivid the consciousness of that face as looking always in on you, like the solemn frescoes of the Christ which Angelico painted on the walls of his convent cells, "that each poor brother might feel his Master ever with him." Make Him your companion, and then, though you may feel the awe of the thought, "Thou hast set our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance," you will find a joy deeper than the awe, and learn the blessedness of those, sinful though they may be, who walk in the full brightness of that face. II. THE HEART'S ECHO TO THE VOICE OF GOD. "My heart said unto Thee, Thy face," etc. Immediate, as the thunder to the lightning, the answer follows the invitation. And it needs to be so. If we delay the response it is apt never to be made at all. The first notes of the Divine voice have more persuasive power than after the heart has become familiar with them, even as the first song of the thrush in spring, that breaks the long wintry silence, has a sweetness all its own. The echo answers as soon as the mother-voice ceases. But too many of us hesitate and delay. The only safety, the only peace lies in prompt obedience and in an immediate answer. There is also brought out here very plainly the complete correspondence between the Divine command and the devout man's resolve. Word for word the invitation is repeated in the answer. Like the sailor at the tiller, he answers his captain's directions by repeating them. "Port," says the officer. "Port it is," says the steersman. "Seek ye My face." "Thy face will I seek." The correspondence in words means the correspondence in action and the thorough-going obedience. How unlike the half-and-half seeking, the languid search, as of people listlessly looking-for something which they do not much expect to find, and do not much care whether they find or no, which characterizes so many so-called Christians! They are seekers after God, are they? Yes, with less eagerness than they would seek for a sovereign if it had fallen from their fingers into the mud. Note, too, the firm and decisive resolution shining through the very brevity of the words. In the original the brevity — three words only — is yet more marked. Fixed resolves need short professions. A Spartan brevity, as of a man with his lips tightly linked together, is fitting for such purposes. Waverers and the feeble. willed try to brace themselves up by talking, making a fence of words around them. But if we are quite resolved, we shall, for the most part, say little about it. What a contrast is this clear resolve to the indecisions and hesitations so common amongst us! The ship heads now one way and now another, and that not because we are wisely tacking — that is to say, seeking to reach one point by widely-varying courses — but because our hand is so weak on the helm that we drift, wherever the wash of the waves and the buffets of the wind carry us. Further, we have in this heart's echo to the voice of God the conversion of a general invitation into a personal resolution. The call is, "Seek ye." The answer is, "I will seek." That is what we have all to do with God's words. He sows His invitations broadcast; we have to make them our own. He sends out His mercy for a world; we have to claim each our portion. He issues His commands to all; I have to make them the law for my life. The stream flows deep and broad from the throne of God, and parts into four heads, the number expressive of universal diffusion throughout the world; but I have to bring it into my own garden by my own trench, and to carry it to my own lip in my own cup. III. THE HEART'S CRY TO GOD FOUNDED ON BOTH THE DIVINE VOICE AND THE HUMAN ECHO. — "Hide not Thy face far from me" is clearly a prayer built upon both these elements in the past. Both give me the right to pray thus, and are pledges of the answer. As to the former, "Thou saidst, Seek ye My face." You may have exactly as much of God as you want and desire. Then "seek His face evermore," and your life will be bright because you will walk in the light of His countenance always. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. WEB: When you said, "Seek my face," my heart said to you, "I will seek your face, Yahweh."