Renew and Seek

I had to do an assignment today for a class I am taking at Regent University.
That assignment made me take a two hour retreat away from EVERYTHING and just spend time in God's word and presence. This assignment was by far the most exciting and refreshing spiritual growth I have had thus far in this class.
Before I began, I had read Ortberg's text, which stated, "We suffer from what has come to be known as 'hurry sickness.' One of the great illusions of our day is that hurrying will buy us more time" (Ortberg, 2002, pp.77).  When going outside to the park by my house and sitting on the playground, I tried very hard to focus on God and discovered this "hurry sickness" Ortberg was referring to. I was unable to concentrate for the first half hour of my time outside. We live next to Oceana Naval Air Station and a highway so I was hearing jets, children playing, birds chirping, and cars driving by. It was extremely hard to get into the focus on my inner spiritual world while so many distractions were lurking around me. After about half an hour of this, God started really speaking to me. He called into my heart and mind the words Renew and Seek. I started trying to find scriptures on these two words and then spent time meditating on them while listening to His voice speaking to my heart.
       For the first word He gave to me, Renew, I found several scriptures with several meanings. There are many types of Renewal that I learned today. There was Isaiah 41:31: the renewal of strength, Psalm 23:3: the renewal of life for His sake, Psalm 51:10: the renewal of the spirit, Romans 12:2: renewal of the mind, 2 Corinthians 4:16: renewal of the inner person, and Titus 3:5: the renewal by the Holy Spirit. Never having thought about all the different types of renewal we can experience, this was an extremely useful fact for me. With these types of renewal available to me, I decided to pray and ask God to help me renew each of these every morning from now on before my day begins so I can further benefit His kingdom for His sake.
       After learning about Renewal, I started looking up scriptures on the other word He gave me, Seek. I found several of these scriptures as well, but the one that really stood out the most for me was Deuteronomy 4:29. It declares, "But from there, you will search for the Lord your God, and you will find Him when you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul" (Holman Christian Standard Bible, 2005). In order for us to fully seek Him and His kingdom, we have to allow Him to first renew us. If our hearts, minds, and souls are daily renewed by Him, then we will be ready to fully seek Him everyday of our lives. In this same instance, the bible says, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and save the lost" (Holman Christian Standard Bible, 2005, Luke 19:10). When we preach to other people about God, we have to be renewed and seeking Him first in order to show other people how to correctly and fully seek Him. You can only teach others what you know and have experienced, not that which you are clueless about. I think it was very significant that God showed me this correlation between these words this morning in my quiet time.
       To retreat away from the world was very difficult but it was a great time of intimacy with Christ. When starting, I was easily distracted and thinking of all I had to do today, but when locked in on Him, I began to take on a new perspective of the world around me. The loud, laughing children became God's beautiful children whom He loves, the jet noise became the sound of freedom for the country God is with, and the the chirping birds became a beautiful part of Him in nature while in His presence.
       When we are open to God, He can transform our perspective into His own and we can start to view the world through His eyes a little more clearly. If I had not done this exercise, I would have continued throughout the rush of the day and missed His beauty in the world around me. I plan on implementing these two important words from today into my everyday routine as well as planning for more retreat times in my days. I encourage anyone else to do the same if you have not recently because it is incredibly rewarding when we stop our lives and just tune in to Him.