Is God Your First Desire?

Where does your mind go the moment it is free? In the stopped traffic, the waiting room, when your phone is down, when the tv is off, the last few minutes before sleep? Most minds default to worry, or plans, or nothing at all. Few minds default to the throne room of God. Fewer still could describe what they would find there if they did.

Picture a believer whose mind, in every spare moment stolen from work and the to-do list, turns to a single fixed point: God seated on His throne, high and lifted up, the cherubim beneath Him and the seraphim above, each seraph with six wings, two covering the face in reverence before the One they are made to worship (Isaiah 6:1-3, NKJV). He pictures the vision given to Ezekiel, the likeness of a throne with the appearance of a man high above it, surrounded by a brightness like a rainbow in the cloud, and calls it the likeness of the glory of the LORD (Ezekiel 1:26-28, NKJV). He pictures John’s vision in Revelation, the throne, the rainbow around it, the four living creatures who never rest, day or night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy” (Revelation 4:2-8, NKJV).

He does not stop with the throne. He considers what it will mean to be raised, not in this flesh and blood, but in a spiritual body suited to that glory, bearing the image of the heavenly rather than the image of the dust (1 Corinthians 15:44-49, NKJV). He considers the Holy Spirit filling the temple of God like a rushing mighty wind (Acts 2:2, NKJV). Every other description of heaven, every reunion, every promise of comfort, is a bonus to him. What he wants is to see God Himself, in the fullness of what these visions only begin to show, and to answer that sight with reverence.

The Difference Between Wanting Heaven and Wanting God

I wonder if many Christians have ever let their minds rest on these visions for more than a few seconds, if ever. They picture streets of gold beyond the crystal sea. They picture seeing loved ones again. They picture rest from labor. These are not wrong desires, but they are not the center of the desire David named when he wrote, “One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD” (Psalm 27:4, NKJV). David did not ask for comfort. He asked to behold.

This is the hard truth comfortable Christianity avoids. You cannot diligently seek what you have never allowed yourself to actually see. A vague hope of heaven someday will not produce diligence today. Only a vision worth losing yourself in will do that, and most believers have traded the vision for the benefits, settling for the gift while ignoring the Giver seated on the throne that makes every gift possible. Sadly, many have not been taught to focus on the Giver instead of the gifts, so they don’t even realize there is so much more to life with God at the center.

What Beholding Requires of You This Week

Stop treating Ezekiel 1, Isaiah 6, and Revelation 4 as strange or difficult passages to get through once and set aside. Choose one of them this week. Read it slowly, more than once, not to master its details but to let it do to you what it did to Isaiah, who cried out “Woe is me” the moment he saw the throne (Isaiah 6:5, NKJV). Sit with the seraphim covering their eyes and ask why creatures who have never sinned still cannot look on God unveiled and ask what that says about the glory you are claiming to seek.

Diligence is fueled by desire, and desire is fueled by vision. If your seeking has grown cold, the problem is rarely a lack of effort. It is a lack of sight. Behold Him first, in whatever measure Scripture allows, and see whether diligence does not follow on its own. You will never be the same. You will never be the same.

Earnestly Pursuing God