November 13, 2014

Pursuit is an act of relentlessly seeking out something or someone else. And thats what we are called to do if we want to grow in our faith!

I dunno how to combat all the things I do on a daily basis, and yet it doesn't matter. Because of Jesus, He overcomes in my life every single time. And I'm seeking Him out again as I face another trial that I don't know how to battle. You see, we shouldn't try and 'figure-out' the many monsters we face, and fight against thier weaknesses. As noble as self-preservation may be, we CANNOT make it. Our monsters will come back even stronger and harder to defeat. But we can run away to the stronghold that is our God, and seek Him out.

Often times when I'm seeking out God, He reveals all about me that I hate. That I despise. That I lock in the deepest, darkest, innermost places of the prison that is my heart. I grit my teeth and shudder when I think of the darkness inside. I caused the One I loved most pain. I still grieve Him. And until I reach heaven, I won't ever stop hurting Him. I am in a constant state of rebellion against my Lord. And its only through constant pursuit of my Jesus that I can ever hope to find slim chances of success.

You see, pursuing Jesus is found in worship. In prayer. In reading the Bible. Pursuit is giving up all you care for so you can track God down, wherever He is, and throw yourself at His feet crying out for mercy. And often times, I'll find that the entire time I've been pursuing Jesus, He really hasn't gone anywhere, I just took the long way around to find Him. He lets us chase after what may seem like the wind to see if we truly do love Him and to measure our faith. If we don't love Jesus and we have no faith, we will just give up thinking He can't be found. And we won't be saved from our hurt until God breaks us.

But when we DO pursue Jesus, and run ALL THE WAY until we finally find Him, we prove our faith and demonstrate our love for Him. He may have us fjord rivers, march through marshes, or jump down into ravines where we cannot see the sun, but eventually we'll end up right where we started: at the cross. And as we lay our hurts and cares and problems at His feet, He reaches down and gives us some of His love and care in a great big ol' hug that supercedes any other. Once He's got us juiced up, He'll set our feet back on the racetrack and we can continue running the race for a prize thats already won! We are guaranteed victory, now we just have to get it! 

You see, its when we trip, or we take the wrong path, or we get caught up at waving at those on the sidelines, that we lose sight of the race set before us. And thats when we need to run, not back to the racetrack, but to our team captain who can get us set back on the straight and narrow! We need to pursue Jesus like He pursued us; by coming to this earth to live among us, He showed us what it meant to be loved by God. His pursuit was the greatest demonstration of love there was, and now we get to reciprocate by running to Him every time we encounter things we cannot (or should not) handle alone!