Every one who reads this chapter with even the slightest attention
must observe how 'seeking' and 'finding' are repeated over and over
again. Christ turns to Andrew and John with the question, 'What _seek_
ye?' Andrew, as the narrative says, '_findeth_ his own brother, Simon,
and saith unto him, "We have _found_ the Messias!"' Then again, Jesus
_finds_ Philip; and again, Philip, as soon as he has been won to
Jesus, goes off to _find_ Nathanael; and his glad word to him is, once
more, 'We have _found_ the Messias.' It is a reciprocal play of
finding and seeking all through these verses.

There are two kinds of finding. There is a casual stumbling upon a
thing that you were not looking for, and there is a finding as the
result of seeking. It is the latter which is here. Christ did not
casually stumble upon Philip, upon that morning, before they departed
from the fords of the Jordan on their short journey to Cana of
Galilee. He went to look for this other Galilean, one who was
connected with Andrew and Peter, a native of the same little village.
He went and found him; and whilst Philip was all unexpectant and
undesirous, the Master came to him and laid His hand upon him, and
drew him to Himself.

Now that is what Christ often does. There are men like the merchantman
who went all over the world seeking goodly pearls, who with some eager
longing to possess light, or truth, or goodness, or rest, search up
and down and find it nowhere, because they are looking for it in a
hundred different places. They are expecting to find a little here and
a little there, and to piece all together to make of the fragments one
all-sufficing restfulness. Then when they are most eager in their
search, or when, perhaps, it has all died down into despair and