BITE: God is Looking for Those Who Seek and Understand Him…

​ The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is none who does good.
  The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God. Psalms 14:1-2 [ESV]

<I know I am behind in my posting so apologies for the stack of ones coming that catch me up.>

Psalms 14 starts with a comment on the fool. The Hebrew language has different words for fool. The writer here uses the word nābāl, which is hard to define exactly, but there is a commentator who explains it well when he says, ‘a nābāl is a kind of fool, low and worthless and a target of ridicule. He is not just dumb, but . . . morally bad’. This is clear in the second line of the first verse, where the fool is shown to be very wicked. But the main thing about fools is that they ignore God. It doesn’t matter if they really don’t believe in God or not. As Proverbs 1:7 says, ‘The fear of the Lord is the start of wisdom’, and here we see the opposite of that: the denial of God is the beginning of stupidity and moral decay.

The second verse starts to peel apart God’s view; looking down to evaluate the hearts of men to see ‘if there are any who understand’ and more importantly, any who seek after Him. We know what happens to those who seek after God, they find Him – it is one His amazing truths. In my walk with this Lord, this is a foundational part of my faith…that as long as I keep my nose in His word, He promises to reciprocate through His Holy Spirit’s influence in my life.

I am looking forward to this Thursday which is the first of the classes on becoming a Canyon Hills Certified Counselor. Marianne and I have committed to putting in the work finally to get the education we need to step into this role more deliberately as God has been directing us in our ministry relationships. More to come on this as learn what the Lord has to say in His word about coming alongside those who are hurting and need the direction from God’s perfect word to see the answers to their issues.