Across the Pastor’s Desk: Seek God with all of your heart
Published 10:09 pm Thursday, August 3, 2017
Across the Pastor’s Desk by Nancy Overgaard
Wanting to spend time seeking God through prayer and Bible study this summer, I wound up in Asbury Grove, Massachusetts, a place where thousands once flocked to meet with God. For me, it began with intense desire to further my Greek studies at the seminary I attended, so I might better read the New Testament in its original language, and in so doing, grow closer to God.

Nancy Overgaard
Finding campus housing filled, I was directed to nearby Asbury Grove, a place I had not known existed. Established as a Methodist camp in 1857, as many as 12,000 people used to gather there to hear Methodist preachers and draw near to God, as astounding historic photos attest. Today, a fraction of that many gathers, yet with the same desire to grow close to the Lord and one another.
Welcomed by both year-round and incoming summer residents, I joined in a community dinner my first week, followed by prayer in the chapel. There, fewer than 12 gathered to pray that God would again stir hearts, as he did in the 1800s and early 1900s, to seek him and do his will.
The fellowship and prayer were sublime, but my favorite feature of the historic camp site was hearing hymns played several times a day on carillon from the chapel. Invariably, their familiar and encouraging words came to my mind and spoke to my heart at just the right time.
One week, it was a favorite hymn of my mother that touched just the right chord. “His Eye is on the Sparrow” was written about a woman, bedridden for years, who nevertheless maintained her serenity and her joy by recalling that reassuring truth taught by Jesus in Matthew 10:29.
Into the tranquility of my own week had broken anxious concern over a troublesome spot on my face. If I had been home, I would have called immediately to have it biopsied, but I was five weeks away from that possibility. And, while I would like to say it did not worry me, it did.
Knowing the wait could be long, anyway, I called for an appointment. A morning cancellation made it possible for me to secure an appointment for a few days after my scheduled return home. That one small detail brought calm reassurance that God was watching over me, as well.
Words from the hymn resonated in my heart, helping me do as they said — rest in his goodness. “‘Let not your heart be troubled,’” rang the chimes, “His tender word I hear, and resting in his goodness, I lose my doubts and fears.” “Resting in his goodness, I lose my doubts and fears.”
You need not study Greek or travel 1,400 miles to draw near to God, as I did. In the kitchen of the 150-year-old building where I stayed, hang prints of two equally historic paintings. One is of an elderly gentleman, presumably a widower, alone at the table, head bowed and hands folded in prayer, a Bible nearby. Hints of grief and loneliness line his face as he silently seeks God for comfort and strength. No special preachers, no vast crowds, just a solitary man and God. In a companion painting, an elderly woman, also alone, bows in prayer, seeking God in the silence.
Prayer may not require distance, but it may require diligence, I learned. As my time in Asbury Grove drew to a close, I dreaded having to leave without an answer to the specific question I had come seeking guidance on, though my heart was being tugged in a general direction. Then, suddenly in the silence, on the final day of my stay, the answer came. I knew what I was to do.
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart,” God promised in Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV). To do so is an awesome experience, and I highly commend it.
Nancy Overgaard is a member of the Freeborn County Ministerial Association.