What’s in a face?

I was reading 2 Chronicles 7:14 one day, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

A phrase in the middle sort of “lit up” from the rest and stopped my reading. I thought I knew that verse by heart – after all, I often referred to it when asking the Lord to forgive our nation and send revival.

But that little phrase in the middle, how had I missed that? What did it mean exactly, “Seek my face?” I soon found several other verses containing that phrase:

• “Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.”  (1 Chron. 16:11)
  
• “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)
  
• “Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.”  (Psalm 105:4)
  

Other passages came to mind. Face to face is how God spoke to Moses, although cloaked in the pillar of cloud. The face of God is always on his people and his ears are always open to their prayers. The eyes of God run to and fro through the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are right towards him.

The meanings of the root words are pretty basic and easy to understand. Seek is from the Hebrew word darash, meaning “to resort to, seek, seek with care, inquire, require.” Face is from paniym, “face, presence, sight, countenance; i.e. the front of something, or in front of something. The surface.”

Since that day I’ve given that phrase a lot of thought. What is a face? What’s in a face? Here’s what I have thought, so far.

A way to communicate, one type of body language
Expressive; shows or hides emotions and physical feelings
Thoughts show on your face
Attentiveness, inattentiveness
Interest, boredom, curiosity
Attraction, repugnance, horror
Startle, surprise, fear, fright, terror
Concentration, determination, frustration, irritation, distraction
Meditation, thoughtfulness
Shyness, boldness
Embarrassment, shame
Anger, rage, wrath, anxiety, worry
Slyness

The mouth, ears, eyes, jaw, cheeks and nose; all the face is involved in expression, including the skin
Skin color changes, blushes, blanches
Eyebrows askew
Eyes wide open or squinting
Eyelids blinking; winking
Looking past, up, down, or direct; indicates attention level
Stare, ogle, glare
Wrinkled brow, raised brow
Wrinkled, raised nose
Pursed lips
Open mouth, closed mouth
Clinched teeth, clinched jaw
Smile, grin, or no smile
Frown, grimace
Twitching, tics

Indicates or hides direction of attention or focus
Eyes show focus of view, near or far; into the distance while meditating
Facade, fake face hiding real one
Intelligence personnel are trained to keep a stony face; comedians can tell jokes with a “straight” face

Slang terms / idioms in common usage
Face the facts
Face up to your responsibilities
Face up to it
Face it like a man
Face your fears
Face value
Face the consequences
On the face of it
Just a pretty face

So, “Seek my face.” What do you mean by that? I asked the Lord another night, after meditating on it a while. Here’s what he said:

My presence, my opinion, my feelings, my directions, my conversation, my fellowship, my purpose, my interests, my purposes, aims and goals.

My affection, my forgiveness, my mercy, my teaching, my training, my correction, my advice, my attention, my ear, my assistance, my mentoring, my example.

My face is not like your face. Vision, for instance, like X-ray vision. MRI. Ultrasound. Sonar. Infrared. Not bound by space or time or physics. Multidimensional, physical and/or spiritual, either or both at once.

He stopped speaking at that point and I started thinking about it again then, and often since then. Some of those thoughts, in no particular order, include

• God has senses… well, of course he does.
• Humans were created in his image; so were their senses, their computing and feeling abilities.
• Any senses we have, God had first.
• Sometimes there is a sweet smell like perfume, the aroma of his presence when you’ve been worshiping and praising him.
• God has physical and spiritual hearing. Even the deepest thoughts of men are discerned by him.
• The face of our thoughts is the surface of our soul.
• But thoughts are not all on the surface. Thoughts are many levels deep, God’s and mine; they are similar in that way.
• But God’s thoughts are countless levels deep and wide, not bound by time or distance.

There’s much more to learn, I know. More to search for, more to find. The Holy Spirit wants us all involved in that kind of search, I know. I don’t think we’ll ever finish finding out more about his face, his presence, his person.

The Prince of Peace painting is by Akiane Kramarik. It can be downloaded free of charge from https://art-soulworks.com/collections/prince-of-peace. 

2018

2018 will be a year of contrasts, I think. I have been sensing some things about 2018. On the one hand, there will be more and worse disasters, chaos, tragedies, deadly weather, weird unique and odd evil happenings. So-called natural disasters will clearly be supernatural in origin. The magnitude and acceleration of these events will be impossible to miss.

There will be more political and religious deception, misdirection, sleight-of-hand and fake news. “Out and oust” has been my prayer in 2017 and we certainly have seen quite a lot of that! There will be more, occurring in many spheres of influence. Business, entertainment, media, and government will all experience their share of unpleasant revelations.

On the other hand, in this coming year millions more new Christians will come into the kingdom of God. There will be more appearances of angels and of Jesus. Breakthroughs will arrive – answers to long-time intercessions – as well as instant answers to current prayers, miracles and miracle healings; unusual supernatural events will become usual. Excitement, joy, exuberant praise and thanksgiving will fill the gatherings of excited new believers and mature disciples alike.

Sadly, while this is going on many people just won’t notice. The status quo will be the status quo. Many church members who like things the way they are, who like doing things “the way we’ve always done it” will be oblivious to marvelous miracles right outside their doors. Some of those churches will have the little spiritual life they still possess flicker and finally extinguish this year. As their numbers dwindle they may ask each other, What happened? By then it will be too late.

Teaching is one of my ministry gifts; some people know that prophecy is another. Prophetic prayer is one of the manifestations of that gift and prophetic teaching is a combination of both.

I pray for people around the world as well as here in Florence. Sometimes that does include prophetic prayer, but over these last few years prophecy and prophetic teaching have been reserved mainly for articles posted on Esther’s Petition. It’s true that quite a few of them have sounded pretty grim, but they have come to pass, nevertheless.

Many folks in our area don’t know about those articles. Many don’t even know I write Esther’s Petition, for that matter. I do post new articles on Twitter and Facebook, but of course not everyone uses those forms of social media.

2018 may be a year where those gifts are used more openly, more publicly, or more widely. I don’t know. But this one thing I do know: God is up to something, and he’s not going to be quiet about it.

The contrasts in 2018 are going to be vivid and obvious.

More of the same

17 August 2017
“What’s going on today, Lord?” I asked. Somewhere in the back of my conscious (finally awake) mind, I could hear How Great Is Our God, being sung. For a few moments I had just stretched and listened – and agreed with – those powerful words, then asked him that question.

“More of the same, accelerated and intensified,” he answered. Suddenly in my mind’s eye I saw fires again, popping up here and there across America.

I’ve seen and written about prophetic fires before: fires of revival. Small pockets of revival, spreading, enlarging and joining, until a conflagration of glorious Holy Spirit fire is burning coast to coast. Burning away dross, chaff, sin, decay, sickness and disease. Leaving wholeness and holiness, God’s creative life and that “more abundantly” in its wake. (John 10:10.)

These current images weren’t like that, though. These were destructive, toxic, evil. Then he reminded me – nothing that ever happens is a surprise to the Lord. He has a plan for believers to respond to every event, and he’s more than willing to tell us how to do that. Respond, not react. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer. How?! Ask him. Then listen!