Seeking God’s Face: What It Means and How to Do It

You felt God close. At a service, on a retreat, in a season when your prayers seemed to touch something real. And then Monday came. The alarm went off. Same job, same bills on the same counter, same quiet. And somewhere in the week the feeling got thin, and a question started working on you.

Was that real? And if it was, how do I get it back?

That’s a hard place to be. You tasted something, and now you want it, and you don’t know the way back. I’ve been there, and I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me.

Part of how I came to Jesus was through visions. God actually showed me things. It was real, and it was wonderful. And then one day, the visions stopped. I was young in the faith, and I figured I must have done something wrong. So I decided to get them back. I would go in my room and shut the door. Eyes squeezed tight. Praying my heart out. Nothing. So I thought, maybe I need to set the mood. I dimmed the lights. Lit some candles. Put on the really anointed worship music. Sat there waiting for God to show me something. Nothing. So I prayed harder. Lit another candle. Still nothing.

Turns out you cannot make God show up by lighting candles. Who knew.

It’s funny now. But underneath the candles was something that wasn’t funny at all. I thought the goal was the feeling. Get the goosebumps back. What I was actually missing was Him.

When God calls His people back to Himself, here’s the language He uses: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14, ESV).

Three words sit at the center. Seek my face. Not seek my hand. Not seek the things I can give you. In the Bible, a person’s face means the person. Their presence. Their self. God is not saying, come get things from me. He’s saying, come get me. The psalmist heard the same call and answered it: “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, LORD, do I seek’” (Psalm 27:8, ESV).

There’s a difference between wanting what God can do for you and wanting God. Chasing the feeling is seeking His hand. Seeking His face is wanting Him, whether or not the goosebumps come.

But here’s where it gets serious. The prophet Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up, the hem of His robe filling the temple, angels covering their faces and crying “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3, ESV). And Isaiah, a good man, a preacher, fell apart: “Woe is me! For I am lost” (Isaiah 6:5, ESV). He didn’t decide to feel small. He saw God, and the smallness was just the truth arriving.

So how do people like us, with our dirty hands and our track records, seek the face of a God that holy?

The Bible tells you exactly where to look: “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6, ESV). At the cross, Jesus took our sin, and the holy God turned His face away from His own Son, so that it would never have to turn away from you. Then the tomb opened, and the face that turned away on Friday turned back on Sunday. All the holiness that made Isaiah fall apart has a face now. And the face is not cold. The face is not far. The face has scars in it, put there for you.

And it gets better. When Jesus rose, He sent His Spirit, and the Spirit doesn’t fill a temple made of stone. He fills people. If you belong to Jesus, God didn’t visit you and leave. He moved in.

So how do you seek His face? Not with candles. Not by manufacturing a mood. Honestly: the tax collector in Jesus’ story wouldn’t lift his eyes; he just prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13, ESV), and went home right with God. Start by telling the truth about yourself. Hungrily: don’t chase the feeling; ask for Him. When God’s people get hungry, not for an experience but for God, He has a long history of pulling back the curtain. Patiently: God is never not with His people. Sometimes He makes His presence felt, and sometimes He calls you to trust His presence in the quiet. Both are His face turned toward you in Christ.

This comes from a message I preached this past Sunday at Belvedere Church. If you’ve been looking for a West Palm Beach church where you can seek God’s face with a real family around you, come this Sunday at 11:00 AM, 301 Cherry Road. You don’t have to clean up first. Nobody here did.