Seeking God's face is all about intimacy with our almighty Creator. It is intentionally bringing God's personal, unconditional love & holiness to shine upon me. Like an eager, tentative child looking to her father for approval as she explores or a spouse's knowing glance from across a crowded room.

One of the most accessible ways of seeking God's face is by reading His word. The more I study God's word, the more clearly I see His face. As a blind person knows faces by touch, I feel the magnificence of meeting God's Holy gaze through scripture! He wants us seeking His face in times of joy & also during trouble for support, conviction & correction.

Otherwise, He may turn to other ways of getting our attention & discipline, as the book of Hosea details. For example, chapter 2 verse 6 states that God used thorns & a wall to stop Gomer from her sin of harlotry.

Before Jesus became the face of God among us, it seems that seeking Him was more arduous & strict but it was also a much more accepted part of everyday life compared to now.

Either way, it still isn't easy to: 1). hear & see God & accept the Gospel. In fact, in our natural state of spiritual death this requires God's intervention; & 2). stay strong on God's path.

Now & in the past, the material world compels us; we get distracted from & forget our need to seek God first & foremost. 

​Furthermore, many people do not acknowledge their need for forgiveness. People can be morally good & do great things, which is wonderful but without accepting the saving grace of God's son Jesus Christ, they remain spiritually dead in sin. 

The book of Hosea makes it clear to me that God wants everyone to know that our greatest need is spiritual met by Him alone!  "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..." (Hosea 4:6) "For there is no savior besides Me." (Hosea 13:4).

Personal happiness is of top priority in this secular, consumeristic world. Reading through the Bible, it seems this has always been the case. When things are not going our way, we're apt to take matters into our own hands & look to other 'gods' that are expertly marketed as more palatable & profitable. All the while, God pleads with us that it is especially during difficult times that we should look to Him even more closely, noticing for instance, the way His eyes weep or sparkle & smile with ours. "So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord." (Hosea 6:3). This is how we grow beyond ourselves.

There are numerous Bible verses that display God's call for everyone to seek His face. Here are two:
1). “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other." (Isa. 45:22).

2). Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink." (John 7:37).
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​If you think you do not belong to God for any reason, may God's intervention change your mind. Hosea 2:23 states, those who used to be considered "not My people" (e.g. non-Jews), are in fact God's people. Furthermore, at least twice, the New Testament records Jesus saying: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matt. 9:13 & Mark 2:17). Note: 'sinners' means everyone.

A wise daily practice it is to humbly confess our blind spots (e.g. "Please my Lord, show me the errors in my way.") as well as sins we’re aware of. Bringing our failures, weakness & brokenness to God almighty is not for the faint of heart. Think of Saul being blinded by the light of God shining upon his sins. "Seek My face" means facing all of ourselves in light of the Father, 'El Roi' (the God who sees me) & 'Galah Raz' (revealer of mysteries). He knows our guilt for sin even before we are born.

Throughout our lives, He works on us, kneading & softening us like clay! Allowing us to feel the wages of sin & thus our need of Him. Graciously He provides us a way back to life with Him, if we so choose it. Within all the frustrations & trials, such a joy-filled sense of relief & gratitude fills me in being set free of death unto life through Christ Jesus. I pray it fills you too, amen.

I want to highlight what others have said about the juiciest book in Bible, Song of Solomon. I highly recommend listening to Christopher West (Theology of the Body) on this topic. He states: "The Bible from beginning to end tells a story about marriage. It begins with the marriage of man & woman. It ends with the marriage of Christ & the Church. And the whole purpose of this marriage at the start of the story, is to point us to this marriage: the eternal union of God with humanity ... that is why we are sexual beings." Amen! :)
He goes on to read these two paragraphs by Saint Gregory of Nyssa:
"Let us come within the Holy of Holies, the Song of Songs. The exalted word promises to teach us the mystery of mysteries through the Song of Songs....
Human nature can neither discover nor entertain anything greater than the Song of Songs. This is why the most intense of pleasurable activities, I mean here, the passion of erotic love, is set as a figure at the very fore of this teaching so that we may learn that it is necessary for the soul to boil with love in the Holy Spirit because it is heated by that fire which the Lord came to cast upon the earth."
God wants us to experience His "soul boiling love" that waters cannot quench & rivers cannot overflow (SoS 8:7) so that it pours out all around us & into others.

Mr. West explains, here: youtu.be/PBlvgybm3L0 (starting at 4:50) using a crumpled piece of paper, what original sin did to sexuality  - I love this analogy so much! Key phrases to listen for:
"Eros expresses agape."
"The Holy is still in there."
"The devil doesn't have his own clay."
"The gift of redemption is to untwist it ..."

Father Mike Schmitz (Ascension Presents) shares a very similar view to Mr. West in pointing out how the Song of Solomon illustrates Saint Thomas Aquinas' statement: “As often as a husband and wife enter into the sexual embrace in a state of grace, they are growing in grace and in glory.”
media.ascensionpress.com/video/the-secret-about-sex-and-holiness/

Furthermore, this next YouTube video showing a dance rendition of Song of Songs: The Bible Explained (Spoken Gospel) emphasizes:

Not to "awaken love until its proper time". I interpret this to mean, do not awaken the fullest intensity of God's love with another without first & continuously being fully awake to God alone. youtu.be/FH4kaV5D5dM

We are fortunate for the gift of love in our lives. How dull would life be without it? Yet we are bound to feel 'beaten up' at times with "love-sickness" in a variety of relationships, not just in the throes of romantic love. The price of human love is the unavoidable experiences of worry, jealousy, grief & heartbreak: "...For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are the flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord." (SoS 8:6)
We are attachment-oriented creatures but relationships & circumstances are impermanent. This conundrum isn't a design flaw! Rather, our longing for the safety, belonging & love of secure attachment is placed, by design as the "God shaped hole" inside each of us that cannot be completely filled by anything but God (try as we might). The good news is that IN JESUS, love is everlasting. Love is STRONGER than death! God raised Christ from death, canceling our sins & sorrows as we say "I do" to eternal life with Him, our glorious Bridegroom forever, amen!

A short clip I made for the verse Song of Solomon 6:10 "Who is this that grows like the dawn..." May God bless you & all your loved ones, amen.
youtu.be/dd7iWhw6g8Y