"And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever."
1 Chronicles 28:9
I like the idea of God searching all of our hearts, even though it is also a little scary, because it means that he really knows us individually, and everything about us, the good and the bad. So he can be a combination of a best friend and a coach (and of course so much more), since he knows our quirks and our favorite things, but also our weaknesses and how to help.
The forsaking part is scary, but it's similar to being advised not to ask for the wrong things (D&C 88:65), or to deny help to others (Mosiah 4:24-25)... because those things bring our own condemnations down upon us. If we deny Christ and live our lives without him, we can't really expect him to force us to heaven, when we haven't ever gone in that direction. He does search for us, and our hearts, and give us every chance, so let's not think that part happens easily. It requires resisting and abandoning Christ over a lifetime and on a broad scale.
It also makes me think of someone in Conference today emphasized... that our obedience to God should be about love. That's why God comes to find us, and we do ourselves a disservice if we don't seek God out and try to get to know him through prayer, the scriptures, etc. and really find out for ourselves what God is about. That's a more important question than almost any other, and getting to know and love God is imperative if we want to see how any of this life stuff fits together, because that love is at the center of it all.
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