Seek

“Instead of passively waiting for God to touch our life, we should act—hungering and thirsting after righteousness—in order to experience Him more frequently.”

The word “seek” appears in the Bible 233 times. To spiritually seek doesn’t just mean to go in search of something. Rather, it means to give your heart, might, mind, and strength in relentless pursuit of God each and every day. That may look different at various times in our lives—even day to day. But God has asked us to do what we can each day to hear and know Him better. Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” The scriptures are filled with words which command us to purposefully act in faith in our pursuit of God. Instead of passively waiting for God to touch our life, we should act—hungering and thirsting after righteousness—in order to experience Him more frequently. Those who persistently seek with real intent will come to find that God truly is at the door waiting for us to come unto Him.

Seeking Him can look like many things. It could be spending time studying and pondering the scriptures to find specific answers and learning—not just reading them. It could be earnestly pouring our heart out to God in prayer—not just quickly saying what we always say because we have other things to do. It could be intently listening to our mind and heart as we strive to be His hands in blessing the life of someone around us. Truly seeking Him each day is just as much about the condition of our heart than the things we actually do. The true condition of our heart will be reflected in how we seek Him.

“If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will begin to more readily learn how much He reaches out and touches our life for good as a witness of the love He has for us.”

The second step involves slowing down and taking time to consider how and when God touched our life. Being able to recognize His influence requires effort, humility, and faith. It requires spiritually sensitive eyes and ears. It requires a soft and willing heart. It requires experience, practice, and patience. Often God speaks to us in gentle and subtle ways. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will begin to more readily learn how much He reaches out and touches our life for good as a witness of the love He has for us.

How often has God done something for us that we did not slow down to recognize or were not sensitive enough to see? We have been promised repeatedly that the more effort we put into recognizing God in our life, the more He will manifest Himself to us. Learning to recognize God’s hand, which can be made manifest in a variety of ways (see 40 potential reasons for putting a leaf on your tree), is vital for everyone. That recognition helps us connect what we have learned intellectually with our experiential reality. It helps connect the mind and the heart.

This step isn’t just about recognizing that something happened, but it is also a time where tremendous learning can take place. We believe that God doesn’t give us divine experiences simply to act like a warm blanket. He has greater purposes in gifting them to us. One of those other purposes is to give us opportunities to learn the most important things. It is through reflection and pondering that we can come to gain greater understanding, light, and knowledge. This additional truth leads to improved obedience, seeking, and other God-like behavior. In short, learning from our sacred experiences helps us become more like Him.

Share and Bear

“We can all benefit greatly from hearing others’ experiences, but it may be particularly beneficial for those who may be struggling in their own faith or those who are having a hard time having their own experiences.”

While some of our spiritual experiences or witnesses will be considered personal and sacred, many of our experiences can and should be shared with each other under the right circumstances and the directly influence of the Spirit. Often, our personal experiences with the Spirit are a result of hearing another share their witness of a time when they experienced God reach down and touch their life. Bearing witness to others of our own personal experiences has tremendous power. We can all benefit greatly from hearing others’ experiences, but it may be particularly beneficial for those who may be struggling in their own faith or those who are having a hard time having their own experiences. The sharing portion can be an incredibly uplifting and influential part of this process as all can be edified and rejoice together. We believe this is another core reasons that God gives us experiences with Him. Not all experiences should be shared, but we believe that we have a stewardship over our experiences and should be willing to witness of God “at all times and in all things and in all places.” “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord.”

“‘The palest ink is better than the best memory.’ Our willingness and effort to remember is a critical part of being able to maintain a clear vision of how much God is in our life.”

Beyond developing the ability and taking the time to to recognize, reflect, and share God’s love in your life, is the necessity to remember those witnesses. It is one thing to experience God’s hand, it is quite another to be able to remember it. Most of you reading this can likely recall significant experiences that you have had that are witnesses of God in your life. They are precious to you. However, even those can fade and lose important details and accuracy with time. And what of the many small, sacred things you have experienced that quickly faded and were forgotten? There is a old Chinese proverb that states, “The palest ink is better than the best memory.” Our willingness and effort to remember is a critical part of being able to maintain a clear vision of how much God is in our life. If we neglect to actively find effective ways to remember, we will almost certainly forget. The spiritual truth attached to a specific experience which once burned bright in our heart and mind, will eventually fade if neglected.

Yes, the Spirit has the ability to bring to our remembrance things we have already experienced and learned, but it is our duty to do all we can to try and remember through our own efforts. Keeping a physical or digital record of our experiences is one of the very best ways to preserve our experiences with God. The importance of recording our witnesses cannot be overstated. By taking the time to record them within a short period of time of when they occurred, or even while we are in the Spirit of the experience, we are collecting an accurate repository of witnesses that can help us see how much God is in the details of our life. This record can strengthen us in times of trial as well as those who will come after. It is a powerful way to continue bearing witness even when we are not around or after we are gone.

Leaf

“It literally becomes a growing symbol of our testimony—the light and truth we understand through personal, spiritual witnesses. It is an outward symbol of the internal faith our sacred experiences engender within us.”

Although this part is the simplest, it is at the core of what makes My Witness Tree unique. We feel that there is something motivating and powerful about seeing a physical symbol of the witnesses we have experienced, shared, and recorded. Your tree becomes very special and has real feelings associated with it since you know that every single leaf symbolizes a witness of the divine. Some of the leaves symbolize very sacred experiences. When we recognize that a particular leaf is symbolic of a particular experience, we endow it with power. It no longer is just a leaf sticker, but it has real meaning and feeling attached to it. It can and should ultimately symbolize our understanding of who God is and how He feels about us individually. It literally becomes a growing symbol of our testimony—the light and truth we understand through personal, spiritual witnesses. It is an outward symbol of the internal faith our sacred experiences engender within us. It is one thing to flip through a journal to try and get a holistic view of all we have experienced, but it is quite another to be able to look at our tree and see it represented all at once in a piece of art we are creating.