Desperately Seeking...

The 1985 Comedy/Drama entitled "Desperately Seeking Susan," starring Roseanne Arquette and Madonna, was about an unfulfilled housewife who is fascinated with a woman she knows only from reading messages to and from her in a NYC tabloid.  Reading the messages were not enough, she wanted desperately to meet her.

The twist in the movie, which has "Roberta," the housewife, going on an "Alice In Wonderland" kind of adventure, is that the majority of the movie is about Susan seeking after Roberta.  I'm not at all suggesting that the writers or producers had a Messianic message in mind but there certainly is similarity in its plot with the theme of the Bible in which mankind desperately seeks after the God, who desperately seeks after us.

If you're wondering if Dr D has been sipping a little too much communion wine to connect this movie with the biblical narrative, the answer is no, and besides, National Park Church, of which I am a member, uses grape juice.  If you question the similarity, listen first to the desperation of mankind through the words of David, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" (Ps 42:1-2).

On the other side of the equation is God himself in the person of Jesus Christ declaring his one reason for leaving the glory and majesty of heaven: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (Lk 19:10).

The two components of the Hollywood/Heavenly drama are put together in the words of Jesus found in John 4:23, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."  The true worshippers, the ones desperately seeking God finally find and are found by the God who is seeking them just as desperately.

So, how do we find God for whom we desperately seek?  We find him by stopping the frantic search and then listen for his call: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (Jn 10:27).  Therefore, "be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10).  Spend daily quiet time opening your heart to God in prayer and listening for his voice as you read from the Bible, his very words.  And, "you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deut 4:29).  Jus' Say'n.