Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t make things more clear? You know what I mean. You pray and pray and pray. You desperately want to know God’s will. It would be so easy for Him to simply tell you what He wants. But He doesn’t.

And do you ever look around at all of those who don’t believe and are searching in all the wrong places for true life and wonder why Jesus doesn’t reveal Himself in a way that doesn’t leave any doubt? I mean couldn’t Jesus come back every hundred years or so to show Himself to the billions of people who are lost?

Or do you sometimes feel like God is hiding from you, like He’s purposely making it difficult to find His will?

If you’ve ever felt any of those things, then join the club. I’m right there with you.

Essentially what we’re wanting is for God to operate by sight, not faith. We want Him to tell us in advance how He’s going to work things out. We want to see how the bills are going to get paid, when we’ll get the new job, when our loved one will be healed and who we’re going to marry.

We want to see, not trust.

But that’s just not how God does things.

We often talk about wanting to know God better, so know this about Him:

He likes to be trusted.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

If you want to please God–trust Him, not what you see or feel. To trust Him, you have to first know Him and His promises. That takes time and effort, which leads to the next point…

God likes to be sought and so He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

To earnestly seek Him means we do it with intensity and seriousness. Earnestly seeking isn’t accomplished in five minutes of Bible reading. Attending church on Sunday morning isn’t enough.

So how much time does it take?

Think of it this way–how much time would you devote to earnestly seeking someone you wanted to date or marry? To what lengths would you go? What distractions would you lay aside so that you could spend more time with him/her?

God wants you to seek Him and trust Him. When you seek Him, He’ll reward you. The more you seek Him, the better you’ll know Him. The more you know Him, the more You’ll trust Him, which pleases Him.

So why isn’t God more clear or obvious to us?

Because if He was, there would be no need to walk by faith, to believe Him rather than our circumstances. If He always spelled things out to us, we wouldn’t feel compelled to seek Him and so we’d never get to know Him any better.

Your confusing circumstances, difficult trials and unmet needs are an invitation to seek God and trust Him today.

Don’t focus on your circumstances. Don’t panic. Don’t anxiously look around you for a quick way out.

Choose to spend time with Him. Dig into His word to know Him better and discover His promises to you, so that you can believe Him.

He will reward you.