In considering seeking the face of God, A.W. Tozer put it well:
Without doubt the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God.
Consider David’s words to his son Solomon:
1 Chron 28:9 “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever. ESV
David instructed Solomon to know his God, the God that he served. In Psalm 36:10 David used the same meaning for the word “know;” to have a religious trust in God. The only way to know God in this manner is to love and serve Him. In the KJV version the word is “perfect heart;” the Hebrew word shalem, which means complete, full, quiet, and peaceable.
But by itself a peaceable heart isn’t enough, you must have a willing mind. How often we forget that the control of our will belongs to us. In the end we need to realize that we can’t fake it with God because He knows our heart in the first place. If our heart is right then our mind will become right, but only if we are willing and obedient to His Word. God put it in pretty straightforward terms:
Amos 5:4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; ESV
How do we seek Him? By faith!
Prov 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ESV
Solomon was admonished to serve God with a willing heart because that required submission. It’s the same for us, a simple willingness to put God first. Just thinking about Him can be simple submission if our heart is in the proper place. If our heart is committed to God in faith then we are leaning fully on Him, which precludes leaning on our own understanding. This is how you build a relationship, by time spent in His presence. Our heart is the center of our spiritual strength, and to love God with all of it is to concentrate all that we have in the process. It takes all our heart in all our ways.
God made us intelligent creatures that were designed to be dependent upon Him. In that dependent state He has promised to communicate to us all that we need. It’s in this relationship that we are to acknowledge Him in all of our ways. There isn’t a single part of our life that God is not deeply interested in. The Hebrews looked upon the heart as not just the seat of all emotions but rather the center of intellect and will. In this verse that meaning translates to committing your whole inner self to God. In so doing He will direct your paths or make your paths straight. If we focus all of our trust in Him then all of our anxieties and fears will be lifted because we are not trusting in ourselves to deal with them.
Here’s the bottom line… Seeking the face of God is not a request!