Monday morning a wave of agony washed across the United States as Daylight Savings Time officially slapped its 320 million residents. You can subtract the happy residents of Arizona and Hawaii plus various American territories which have had the good sense to leave their clocks alone.

For the rest of us, though, can you imagine the collective pain that wafted into earth’s atmosphere from 300 million tortured people? If you could have put all the groans together that escaped suffering throats when the alarm clock bonged, the sound would have been heard a light year away.

Little Martians would have looked up from the dust of the Red Planet and asked, “Mama, what was that?”

Actually, I had a strange question that floated through the fog that had invaded my head after the annual torture-fest. “How would King David have reacted to an ancient Daylight savings time in the Middle East?” After all, he usually hit the floor early to seek God.

“O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.” (Ps. 63:1, NKJV)

Would David have hit the snooze button and pulled the covers up around his ears? “I’ll get back to normal tomorrow, Lord. This morning, I just … zzzzzzzzzzz.”

Maybe. He didn’t write a psalm about it if he did, though.

David thought seeking God was important, vital even.

Is God Lost?

“Seeking God? What are you talking about?” I once heard a preacher say in effect, “God isn’t lost!”

He’s not, but I often am. Seeking God means pushing forward until you’re in His presence.

“Wait, wait! David, hang on. What do you mean, ‘until you get into God’s presence,’? God is everywhere.”

Yes, He is everywhere. But, He’s not everywhere in the same way. He’s in the bar. He’s at the football game. He’s at the mall. He’s in all kinds of places that people would be embarrassed to be found. But, He’s not present in those places like He’s present when two or three of His people are gathered together to celebrate their love for Him and worship Him. (Matt. 18:20)

God manifests Himself in a special way when His kids get together. That should be priority in our lives.

When we seek God, we press through all the junk that screams for our attention, we body-slam our laziness, we drop the priority rating of other important things and we head towards God.

How do you do that?

Well, it’s a heart attitude before it’s anything else. If you can live with things the way they are, you’ll stay there evaporating, like a puddle of snow water melted off your boots.

If you’re most passionate about work, sports, fun, money, being known and admired, or a thousand other things, you’ll do just enough spiritually to get by. Sunday morning. “Present.” Fifteen minutes of Bible reading? “Five…” Ten minutes of prayer? “Um, 30 seconds. But, hey, it’s all by grace.”

And you know what? You could pray an hour, read an hour, go to church seven times a week and if your heart attitude wasn’t right, you wouldn’t be any closer to Him.

But, if you miss Him and you get up and move towards Him… if you realize that your priorities have spun out of whack and you look ahead and see your airplane is going to crack up … if you want the promises God gives to those who come close, well, something is going to change.

You get something vital to who you are in God’s presence. “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11, NKJV)

How do you get in His presence?

Look at a young man who has fallen in love with a gorgeous girl. How does he get in her presence? You know what? He wants to be with her so bad that he will figure it out!

Neither ugly fathers, three hundred-pound brothers, mothers who stare like he’s something they scraped off their shoe, or Siberian snow storms will stop him. He wants to be with that girl and he will find a way.

If you and I want to be with Him, we’ll find a way won’t we?

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Hmmm …

“Many who plan to seek God at the eleventh hour die at 10:30.”

“Swallowing your pride seldom leads to indigestion.”

“Don’t marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper.”

(Authors unknown)