You have probably read Matthew 7:7, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you". I want to focus on the middle part of this verse, "seek and you will find".

When I look back on my life I can honestly call myself a seeker. I have sought many things. Some good and some not so good. In the past 5 or 6 years I have sought God and Jesus more and more.

The problem is that when I have striven to seek God, I found myself. That means that I found my insufficiencies, my insecurities, my shortcomings, my inability to be humble, my anger and hurt. Why couldn't I find God?

Because I didn't follow some of my Jewish friends' advice from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, where, in Deuteronomy 4:29 it says, "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul."

I didn't seek Him with all my heart and soul. I wanted the fast food variety answers, the "hurry up I have to go" kind of seeking. I wasn't honest with myself or God. I didn't truly turn myself over to the care of God as I understood him. (That phrase may sound familiar to some of my brothers and sisters in recovery. Which, by the way, we are all in recovery...life recovery.)

So then I started focusing on finding myself with the help of God. I didn't like what I found. Manipulation, cold heartedness, impatience, pride, arrogance and a whole lot more. That's not to say I didn't fine some good qualities as well. But the not so good qualities had much more of an effect on my spirituality and well being than the good qualities.

As I sought myself the term "New Creature" kept coming to mind. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Now, I have been a Christian since July 4, 1990. But I realized I still had old things that I held onto and had not let die. Some of these things went back to when I was in High School. A long time for a 62 year old man to hang onto.

So I started praying to God to make me into a new creature in ways He saw fit. To remove my manipulation and replace it with compassion. To take away the cold heartedness and replace it with tenderness and understanding. Pride and arrogance were to be replaced with humility and sincerity.

And God began His work and for a week I was a new creature. Five days out of 9,125 since I had became a Christian. That's less than 1 percent! I had been a New Testament New Creation Christian less than 1 percent of my time! Now that's something to definitely not brag about.

Then after some time of slipping back into the old me, I began to seek again. Seeking with all my heart and soul. Knowing my very life depended upon only one thing...God. God creating me into a new creature, not me reading more, studying the Bible more, praying and meditating more. Nothing I could do could make me into a new creation. I was nothing...without God. My life was not going to work if I didn't totally surrender to God.

So I let Him do His thing. Mold me, shape me, test me, re-mold me, re-shape me, re-test me. And several times I thought, "I will do this now or that now". Then I would remember I couldn't do this or that because if I did, I would be pretending to be God.

I had to let go. Die. Detach. Accept and believe. Have faith...and believe in faith. And God started re-creating again. And I listened rather than talked. I became still rather than hurried to make it work.

You see my PhD, my family, my business, my knowledge, my abilities could not get me what I wanted. Only God could do that. Only the Creator could create a new creature. And I had to let Him do that.

The Persian poet Rumi says, "I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God." Now I understand what Rumi was talking about.

I think becoming a new creature is an ongoing process. A process that involves letting God be God and you be you. Galatians 6:15 says, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation." It doesn't matter who you are or what you are. "What counts is the new creation."

Be blessed today...and bless someone.

Copyright 2015 Donny Wright PhD.

Donny is a writer, businessman and father.  His writings reflect a sense of help and hope for the struggling seekers.

You may purchase his book, "Thirty Days To Ponder:  Spiritual Inspirations For A Positive Life" from www.createspace.com or email him at [email protected]