Seek and Deeply Long for Him

This summer has not been a quiet one.

It has been full in every sense of the word…full of kids, family, sweet memories, and all the emotions that come with knowing we are getting closer to sending the boys off to college. There have been fewer hours in the studio than usual because, honestly, I have wanted to be present for as much of it as I can.

But even in the middle of all that fullness, I keep returning to the quiet of the early morning.

For more than twenty years, I have gotten up around 5:40 in the morning to spend time in the Word. At this point, it has simply become the rhythm of my life. Most mornings, my first conscious thought is something like:

Coffee. Jesus.

I make my coffee, walk to my tiny little desk with my little bitty light, and sit.

I read. I listen. I learn. I wait.

There is something about those hours before the rest of the house is awake that has become sacred to me…not because the routine itself is anything special, but because relationships require intention. We know that to be true in our relationships with one another, and I think sometimes we forget it is also true of our relationship with the Lord.

We have to choose to spend time with Him.

This summer, I have found myself returning again and again to Psalm 105:

“Seek and deeply long for the Lord and His strength… seek and deeply long for His face and His presence continually.”

Those words—seek and deeply long—have stayed with me.

I have also been sitting in Proverbs 8:

“Pay attention to instruction and be wise… Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts.”

Watching.

Waiting.

Paying attention.

Seeking Him daily.

I think that is where my heart has been this summer. In a season that feels so full and is moving so quickly, I keep feeling the reminder to slow down enough to notice. To listen. To be aware of His presence. To seek Him not occasionally or only when I need something, but continually.

And without really planning it, that is where this newest body of work began.

The paintings started carrying the feeling of those early mornings—the quiet before the day begins, the first light coming through, the stillness of a world that has not quite woken up yet.

That moment when you get out of bed and something in you immediately knows:

I need to spend time with the Lord.

I need to be with Him.

The first paintings were only the beginning. As I have continued working in the studio, the same thread has kept unfolding from one piece to the next. Light breaking through. Water leading somewhere beyond what we can see. Quiet places that ask us to pause. To watch. To wait. To seek.

Several of these new paintings are now in their final stages, and I am beginning to see them together as one larger story.

A reminder, perhaps, that we do not find stillness by escaping the fullness of life. We find it by learning where to turn in the middle of it.

So this is my prayer for this work—and for you as you encounter it:

That you would seek Him.

That you would deeply long for Him.

That you would make space to listen, to watch, and to wait.

And that, even in the fullest seasons, you would find Him there.