In Pursuit

The Lord met me in the shower last week. It’s a strange place to hear from God, I’ll admit, but it happened nevertheless. I had just been for a long walk with a dear friend out in the dreary, cold morning and needed to warm up. As the water thawed my skin and fogged the bathroom mirror, I recalled our conversation. My friend and I had processed both sides of a decision I was facing about ministry leadership opportunities. After much back and forth, weighing of pros and cons, looking at things logically versus emotionally, we landed on one side of the coin. I stepped into the shower feeling quite sure of the conclusion I’d come to, but the longer I stood under the streams of water, the more God unraveled my neatly ordered thoughts. He began with one word: pursue. It came to me so clearly He may as well have written it in the steam on the glass.

Pursue. This, I knew, was to be my word for the year. He immediately brought to mind the names of friends, women, peers in my community I was pursuing for His kingdom. Over the past year He’d given me numerous opportunities to begin new relationships and grow existing ones with those who have yet to know Him and believe. Already in the coming months He's providing me with even more chances to befriend, encourage, pray for and share the love of Jesus with people in my ever broadening circle. I knew then, without a doubt, that the ministry position I needed to choose was not what I originally thought. I needed to be where I could best continue to pursue my existing community and draw them to His arms.

The more I sit with this word, pursue, the more I love it. There are innumerable ways to apply it. To pursue quite simply means to chase after something in order to attain it. We pursue goals, riches, dreams, and of course, happiness. That’s what the world would have us pursue anyway. Goals, once achieved, are quickly replaced with new ones. The same goes for dreams. Once attained we revel in the achievement for a while, only to find ourselves discontent once again and in search of a new dream. Happiness, it should go without saying, is fleeting, a mere feeling that’s conditional of our circumstances. And what do these worldly pursuits have in common? Goals, dreams and happiness? They benefit us and us alone. They are self-serving.

God’s Word has something different to say about our pursuits. First and Second Timothy tell us to pursue righteousness, godly living, faithfulness, perseverance, gentleness, love, and peace (ITimothy 6:11, 2Timothy 2:22). Proverbs tells us to pursue godliness and unfailing love (Proverbs 15:9, 21:21). The Psalms tell us to pursue justice and God’s commands (Psalm 94:15, 119:32). Now, let’s be honest, pursuing our goals, dreams and happiness sounds a whole lot easier than pursuing this list from the Lord, but the reward is significantly greater. Faithfulness, peace, love, gentleness, justice, godliness: these are conditions of our heart and soul. When we grasp these, our lives and the lives of those around us will never be the same.

Imagine the impact on our community if relationships with our friends, neighbors and leaders were motivated by love. Imagine how different our society would be if we were ruled with gentleness, justice and peace. 1Timothy 6:6 tells us godliness with contentment is great wealth. The pursuit of earthly treasure is not what leads to happiness. We chase for it in vain. Earthly treasure, went spent, dissipates. Godliness paired with contentment, satisfaction with what we have, is where true riches lie. The health and stability of our marriages, our families, our homes and our finances would be significantly impacted for good if we made a point of pursuing faithfulness, unfailing love and the commands of the Lord. Ultimately, pursuing the things of God makes it possible for us to pursue others for His kingdom and that is a goal worth achieving.

Any pursuit we are called to is best understood when we look at how Christ pursues us. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 23:6: “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.” I just love the image this paints of our Father’s unfailing love chasing after us, following at our heels until it consumes us entirely. I think of the story of Jonah, called by God to minister to the people of Nineveh yet Jonah stubbornly disobeyed. He ran in the opposite direction, as far away from God’s request as possible. God could have punished Jonah for his obstinance. He could have allowed him to die in the belly of the fish. He could have moved on from Jonah and chosen someone else to do the job. But God pursued Jonah. He went after him, refusing to let Jonah get away. God loved Jonah so much, that even in his wandering, even in his disobedience, He believed Jonah was worth pursuing.

We see God’s pursuit of us exemplified also in the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders” (v.4-5). Our God is a good Shepherd. When we stray from Him, He pursues us relentlessly. He does not give up until He’s found us again. We are that valuable to Him. This is how we are to value others. This is how we are to be kingdom-minded. Every lost soul is one God can save. No one is too far gone. May we passionately pursue others with the same commitment that Christ pursues us.

What am I in pursuit of this year? This is the question I considered in the shower once I’d heard from the Lord. Is it happiness? Financial gain? Health? Matthew 6:21 says, “Where your treasure is your heart will be also.” We’re all chasing after treasure, but what we consider treasure depends on the condition of our heart. Where are we placing our value? As I rolled a bar of soap between my hands I knew without a doubt I was being told to value the lost; the friends, neighbors and peers in my circle that are far from God and in desperate need of His saving grace, whether they know it or not. So where do I start? By positioning myself in communities and ministries where I can best build relationships? Yes. But I must first position my heart. I must take a runner’s stance and engage in the pursuit of godliness. I must chase after the commands of God, relentlessly following after Him just as He follows after me.

This year, I will choose tireless pursuit.