You will seek Me and find Me; when you seek Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13
In the last reflection, we spoke of how we are to love God with our whole heart. What if, as an experiment, we started looking for hearts, one heart every day for a week. The heart might be a heart-shaped leaf, or a heart-shaped cloud, it might be a heart on someone’s t-shirt, or a heart-shaped earring.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Ninety percent of what we take in, we take in through our sense of sight. Our hearts are affected by what we see, and what we are looking for. Our eyes affect our hearts, and our hearts affect how we love God.
We all have so many blessings in our lives, and most of the time, we miss them. We don’t notice them, we forget them, or we just take them for granted. There is something in our brains called the reticular activating system, or RAS. The RAS is basically a filter. It decides what you notice and what you ignore. For instance, put ten different people in a park, and have them survey the whole scene. Someone’s eyes will be drawn towards red cars in the parking lot. Someone else will be looking for what various people are eating. My eyes will probably be diverted to the guy across the street mowing his lawn. The RAS system also draws our attention to relevant information, such as when you hear your name in a crowded room. There can be lots of things going on in a crowded room, but when we hear our name, we suddenly don’t hear anything else. Another thing the RAS system does is when we have a sense of danger. It helps us to hyperfocus to avoid the threat.
Here is the key thing about our minds. You see what you are looking for. If you start looking for something, you’ll suddenly see it everywhere. I have no idea how many red cars I pass by on the road on the way to work each day. I don’t really pay attention to them. I’m usually listening to a podcast, a sports talk-show or talking on the phone. But if I set out to see how many red cars I could observe on the way to work one morning, I’m sure I’d find a lot of them. We tend to find what we are looking for.
In trying to focus on God, it is important to monitor the things we see with our eyes. If we are looking for things of God, we are going to find them, and our eyes will be sound and full of light. If we are looking for things that are not of God, or if we busy our eyes looking at ungodly things, then not only our eyes but our bodies will be filled with spiritual darkness. Back to the example of the red cars on the road. They are always there—we just don’t see them until we start paying attention. God works in the same way. He is always there. But we don’t see Him if we are not taking the time to see God in everyday life—in creation, in beauty, in people around us, and in ourselves.
In Jeremiah 29:13, we read “You will seek Me and find Me; when you seek Me with all your heart.” Christianity is not a passive religion. We don’t just sit and wait for things to happen. We are supposed to be seekers, not just observers, and seeking God is an active pursuit.
In Romans 12:2, St. Paul writes, Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Life is a journey of transformation. As we learn new things and acquire new information, our views on things change and our life experience changes as well. Where a child is always looking for things that are fun, an adult might be looking for an opportunity to achieve something, make money or find meaning. The world pressures us to conform to certain societal norms or needs that may or may not be in unity with what God wants for us. While the world encourages us to look for materialistic things, God tells us to seek Godly things.
St. Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. He is calling on us to look for things that are just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent and praiseworthy. What we focus on shapes how we see everything. If we start looking for positive things, that’s what we’ll find. If we are looking for negative things, that’s what we’ll find. If we are looking for Godly things, or ungodly things, that’s what we are going to find. This is why St. Paul encourages to look for what is true, honorable and lovely.
Lord, thank You for the gift of a heart that beats and eyes that see. Help me to see things that will stir my heart towards love for You and love for others. Help me to look for that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious and praiseworthy; to seek You and to find You; and to not feel pressured to conform to this world, but rather to be transformed by the renewal of my mind; that I may do Your will, the things You deem good and acceptable and perfect. Amen.
Here is a challenge: Start looking for hearts—in nature, in clouds, in random places, in everyday life. At first it might feel like a game. But after a while, something changes.
