God is the great seeker. In the gospel of Luke, chapter 19, verse 10, we read, “The Son of Man (Jesus) came to seek and to save what was lost.” We human beings are the lost ones.

It’s important that we take note of the fact that God loved first—God gave His Son. His seeking us because of His great love for us precedes any quest of our own. Romans 3:11, declares, “There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.”

The fact that Jesus Christ came to earth, suffered and died for our sins, and was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so that we might be saved, establishes God as the great seeker. Any seeking after God that people do is simply a response to God’s initial seeking.

Somebody said, “There is a void in the human heart that only God can fill.” The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes 3:11, states, “He (God) has also set eternity in the hearts of men.”

God has made the first move, and any wholehearted response on our part of desperately seeking him will be rewarded. In Jeremiah 29:13, God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

What does wholehearted or desperate seeking look like? In Luke, chapter 8, Jesus was in the midst of His earthly ministry. He had just returned from the eastern shore of Lake Galilee where He had cast many demons out of a man (Luke 8:30-33). The crowds following Jesus were huge. The crowd is described in Luke 8:42: “As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him.” Jesus could not take a step without somebody jostling Him, bumping into him, likely trying to touch him in some way as they were filled with the wonder of Jesus Christ.

The crowd was filled with the curious, those who had heard and wanted to see. The crowd likely contained some scoffers, those who came to prove to themselves that all the glowing reports were overstated. There were opportunists in the crowd, people who were seeking to get in on something good in this great mass movement. Were there seekers in that crowd? Yes, but how many desperate seekers?

There was a woman in that crowd. Luke 8:43, describes her: “A woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for12 years, but no one could heal her.” This woman was desperate! Verse 44 continues her story: “She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.”

The crowd was huge. People surrounded Jesus and likely the strongest and most able were the ones closest to Jesus. How did this sick woman get to Jesus? She touched the edge of His cloak; some versions say the hem of His garment. Likely the only way this weak, sickly woman could get to Jesus was to get on her hands and knees and crawl through the legs of the crowd to somehow get a hand on the edge of the cloak of Jesus. That is desperation!

Jesus immediately proclaimed, “Who touched me?” (Luke 8:45). Verse 45 acknowledges that  “they (the crowd)  all denied it.” Peter stated the obvious when he said to Jesus that everybody close to Him (Jesus) was touching him. Jesus then said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me” (Luke 8:46). The woman humbly came forward. Jesus acknowledged her and said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you” (Luke 8:48).

This woman was a desperate seeker of God. She pursued all means possible to get to Jesus and her desperation was rewarded. Are we desperately seeking God today?

The Rev. Dan Puckett is a minister with Life Action Ministries.