How to Seek Someone Who Is Always There

By Graham Cooke

One of the key questions of the New Testament is simple, but profound: How do you seek the Lord when he never leaves you nor forsakes you?

To put it shorter: How do you seek someone who is always with you?

It’s impossible to have a situation where God is not present, therefore I think seeking him simply means that every circumstance is another opportunity for you and Jesus to have a conversation.11

It means you make the first action in any situation to look for the presence of Jesus and stand where he’s standing. You’re looking for the presence of God. You’re looking for the reality of God. You’re seeking that reality because Christ is in you, therefore he’s in the situation.

You’re looking for his presence in that particular circumstance. And you want to find him in the way that he wants to be found. That’s the whole reason you get a lot of different circumstances: because God wants to pop up differently in your life. He gives you lots of opportunity.

And if that’s the case, it’s always worth asking: What is it that God wants to be for me now that He can’t be at other times?

Some situations will be about developing patience. He’ll be your patience. Some will be about you developing peace. He’ll be the prince of peace. He wants to be for you exactly what you need in that situation. Or perhaps we can say it like this…

We know God’s here. So how does He want to be here in this particular situation?

Living in England years ago, a woman I had known for some time stopped me on the streets and said, “I’ve got cancer. I’ve just come from the doctors. I’ve got like 6 months to live. I know you have a prophetic gifting so tell me the truth, will I live or die?”

I said, “I can’t tell you that. But I can help you find a way through to discovering who God is. And then he’ll give you the answer to that question.”

She said, “What do I do?”

I said, “You ask the Holy Spirit this question: What is it that you want to be for me now that I’ve got cancer that you couldn’t be at any other time? You ask that question several times a day and he will connect with you2.” And then I prayed with her.

Around ten days later, I saw the same woman again, and I asked her how she was doing.

“I’ve got my answer,” she said. “I kept asking throughout the day, ‘Lord what is it that you want to be?’”

“Every time I asked it, a certainty grew in my heart that he wanted to be something for me,” she continued. “And then for two or three days I lost sight of the fact that I had cancer, because I was so excited about what God was going to be for me. And then I woke up in the night and I heard these words: ‘I am the Lord that heals you.’”

She’s cancer free.

Seeking God is actually more about abiding in God.6

The focal point of our concentration is on the indwelling Jesus and learning how to abide in him; how to stay.

We live in a habitation culture. That’s why I think this is such a great question: “What is it that you want to be for me now that you couldn’t be at any other time?”

You can find evidence of it all over the Bible.

“If anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father and I will love him and we will come and make our abode with him.” – John 14:23

“Abide in me and I will abide in you. If you abide in me and my word abides in you, you can ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. Abide in my love.” -1 John 2:24

“You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” -Romans 8:9-11

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” -1 Corinthians 3:16

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. -Ephesians 2:22

You are a habitation of God. He’s not an uncle. He’s not going to come and visit you. He came in and he came to stay. He ain’t leaving.5

Regardless of what “seeking God” means for you now, you’re going to have to get used to the fact that your life is all about the habitation of God. So, the sooner you start trying to figure out what abiding in Him means for you in every circumstance, the better.