Seeking/Searching

“ We would like to think that gaining spiritual understanding comes from the sudden unveiling of a revelation, a quick flash of insight. But our reading of Proverbs 2:1-22 teaches us we must search diligently for wisdom. And it assures us that this earnest search will be rewarded…All of life is a search for God and an encounter with Him: in prayer, in repentance, in love, in others.” (Fr. Basil, Br. Andrei)

“In the long run, a life without limits does not become a search for happiness, but an escape from yourself—from your responsibility, the need to choose between what is easy and what is right, and the impending harsh reality in the form of mental and physical diseases…we find God by uncovering our own true selves; and it is in the search for God that we can better discover who we are…“The deepest mode of the spiritual life is one that searches for God, that asks, seeks, and knocks, in order to find the Kingdom. That is a search that takes us beneath layers of shame, beneath our false identities, into the very place where the image of God and the true self reside. This is a difficult journey.” (Hieromonk Roman Kropotov, Robert J. Wicks, Father Stephen Freeman)

“Why is it said that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over one hundred righteous ones, not needing repentance? Because it is difficult, but necessary to come to this repentance, saying: “It turns out that I am essentially no different from others; my nature is from Adam of old; I am by nature the same as my brother.” But we don’t want to know ourselves, study ourselves with an inquisitive eye, because this requires the next step, which is the search for the answer to the question: “But from what is this so in me?” The carnal opposes the spiritual; this is the law of inner warfare. This is why people choose a more natural and simple path, as it would seem: looking around, judging others and not yourself. They don’t recognize that they are causing great damage to themselves…” (Archpriest Georgiy Bryeyev)

“…music is also a primary path to union with God. The spiritual life can rightly be described as a search for the “Lord’s song,” that music which is uniquely the song of our life intended to be offered in union with God’s song of creation. It is interesting to me that one of the properties of sound is that is causes objects to vibrate that belong to its frequency. Such “sympathetic vibrations” are a metaphor for aspects of the spiritual life that have no other natural example.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Now, in this passage from Luke, we see the Forerunner persisting in his Christ-centered life. When his disciples express concern about the Lord Jesus’ ministry, Saint John sends two of them to the Lord so that they might witness that Jesus is the Christ (Lk 7:17-19). The Forerunner encourages these men to ask Jesus, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” (vs. 20). Saint John does not resort to persuasion to convince his disciples, but rather tells them to search out the truth for themselves, based on Jesus’ own actions and words (vs. 19). We, too, should encourage others to investigate Christ Jesus for themselves. We need not sell Christ to the world as if He were a commodity. Faithful forerunners understand that knowing the Lord Jesus and His teaching firsthand is more powerful than any human testimony, so they plant questions and invite exploration.” (Dynamis 10/8/2020)

“Do you wish to learn the opportune time for seeking the Lord? Let me briefly state that your entire life is the only time to carry this out. Seeking the Lord is not defined by limit or time; rather, the truly opportune time for this consists in never putting an end to our search.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa)

“The great perversion of our consumer life-style is to substitute shopping for seeking. Our passions (traditionally described as: self-love, gluttony, lust, love of money and greed, sadness, acedia (sloth & dejection or apathy and boredom anger, fear, vainglory, and pride) create a counterfeit sense of seeking. The passions cry out to be fed and satiated. However, they are disordered (for a variety of reasons) and generally only draw us deeper into a maw of darkness and addiction. We frequently imagine asceticism to be an unusual application in our life. What we imagine to be “self-denial” is, in fact, little more than a proper effort to live a life that is truly conformed to our nature. We cannot seek the true food of the soul until we find the soul’s true hunger.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Excessive care about worldly matters is characteristic of an unbelieving and fainthearted person, and woe to us, if, in taking care of ourselves, we do not use as our foundation our faith in God, who cares for us! If we do not attribute visible blessings to Him, which we use in this life, then how can we expect those blessings from Him which are promised in the future? We will not be of such little faith. By the words of our Savior, it is better first to seek the Kingdom of God, for the rest shall be added unto us (see Mt. 6:33).” (St. Seraphim of Sarov)

“…we must use our freedom as human persons to seek first His Kingdom as we find the healing of our souls in response to His gracious invitation. The conventional responsibilities of life are in no way incompatible with doing so, for they provide opportunities to reorient the desires of our hearts to God as we love and serve Christ in our neighbors. All of our blessings and struggles are part of His creation, and nothing but our own sinfulness keeps us from making them points of entrance into eternal joy. By mindfully offering them to God every day of our lives, we will gain the strength to obey St. Paul’s instruction to “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Family life, work, and the countless challenges of living faithfully in our culture present opportunities to find healing from “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk,” as well as lying. This is possible not because we have fulfilled a list of legalistic requirements, but because in baptism we have “put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)

“Mountains figure prominently in many Bible stories. I am reminded of Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God’s hand; Mount Tabor, where Jesus led Peter, James, and John to witness His Transfiguration; and the hillside from which our Lord taught His famous Sermon on the Mount. In all of these cases mountains express a theological principle—God reveals Himself and distributes divine gifts to those willing to rise above this world and seek a higher reality.” (Archpriest Steven John Belonick)

“If in the things of this life no one can gain a great profit if he should conduct them in and indifferent and chance way, much more will this be the case in spiritual things, since they require greater attention. Therefore, Christ, when He referred the Jews to the Scriptures [John 5:39], sent them not to a mere reading, but careful and observant search, for He said not; “Keep on reading the Scriptures, but keep on searching.” (St. John Chrysostom)“The term "religion" has been given many definitions. It derives from the Latin religio, which originally meant respect for what is sacred; later, it came to mean holding fast to conscientiousness, to the instinct that is innate in the human being and that controls, prompts, approves, reprimands, and guides the human being in his or her relations with the surrounding cosmos and with fellow human beings. The Greek term for religion is threskeia, and threskeia means instinctive awe before the cosmos, and thus worship of the divine. Threskeia derives from the verb throsko, which means to leap up in joyful expectation, to search. In this sense, every human being instinctively behaves religiously, and in a way, life itself is identified with religion, and religion is concerned with the whole life.” (Demetrios J. Constantelos) “But if we are not in the Spirit, we must discover why not and what reason our Lord God the Holy Spirit has willed to abandon us. We must seek Him again and must go on searching until our Lord God the Holy Spirit has been found and is with us again, through His goodness. We must attack the enemies that drive us away from Him until even their dust is no more.” (St. Seraphim of Sarov) “Christ told the Pharisees that they searched the Scriptures thinking that in them they had eternal life (John 5:39). He was essentially telling them that they were reading and studying the written lines as if somehow in doing so they could acquire perpetual existence. They were searching the Scriptures wrongly thinking that learning the right information could save them. They didn’t understand that searching the Scriptures rightly should have led them to a Person, Christ, and that Person was the one who could give them life (v40). It’s important that when we search that the focus of our search is the right focus which means Him. Then we learn our search is not so much a search, but rather a discovery of someone Who has always been there and is inviting us to Him.” (Sacramental Living Ministries) “If I don’t know God, I don’t know myself, because I am made in God’s image and likeness. I need to know God to know who I am, to have an authentic identity. Much of the contemporary search for identity is a deeper, though often unconscious, seeking for Christ within our hearts.” (Albert S. Rossi)

“A medieval Christian proverb says, “To search for God is to insult God.” This implies that God is always present and any search for Him is a refusal of this fact…Don’t search for that which is already at hand.” But we are westerners and have to search in order to learn that there is no search.” (Robert A. Johnson)

“Christ told the Pharisees that they searched the Scriptures thinking that in them they had eternal life (John 5:39). He also told them they were missing the point in that they did not believe and were not coming to Him for eternal life (John 5:38, 40). It’s important that when we search that the focus of our search is the right focus which means Him. Then we learn our search is not so much a search, but rather a discovery of someone Who has always been there.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“So there is one God, who by the Word and Wisdom created and arranged all things. This is the Creator who has granted this world to the human race and who, as to His greatness, is unknown to all whom He has made—for no one has searched out His height, whether among the ancients who have gone to their rest or any of those who are now alive. But in His love, He is always known through Him by whose means He ordained all things.” (St. Irenaeus)

“After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the gospel no need of research.” (Tertullian)

Much of the contemporary search for identity is a deeper, though often unconscious, seeking for Christ within our hearts.” (Albert S. Rossi)

#StGregoryofNyssa #FatherStephenFreeman #StSeraphimofSarov #FrPhilipLeMasters #ArchpriestStevenJohnBelonick #RobertAJohnson #SacramentalLivingMinistries #StIrenaeus #Tertullian #AlbertRossi #StJohnChrysostom #DemetriosJConstantelos #StSeraphimofSarov #FrBasil #BrAndrei #HieromonkRomanKropotov #RobertJWicks #ArchpriestGeorgiyBryeyev #Dynamis