The God of Pursuit
Does God seek you out or wait for you to come to Him?
Verse of the Day
Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:9
Today’s Devotional
Each day, as I began thinking and praying about what to write, my question to the Lord has been, “God, who are you? What do you want me to know about you?”
One of the things that keeps coming up in my mind as I pray is the word “Pursuit”. God is telling me that He pursues me.
In today’s verse, we see God looking for Adam and Eve in the garden. They, however, are nowhere to be found because they are hiding. Does that sound familiar to you at all? Have you ever believed a lie of Satan, acted on that lie, and then felt shame that led you to hide from God? Gotquestions.org says about this verse: “[This] was the first missionary effort, as the Creator sought out His lost creatures. God has always had a heart of reconciliation.”
God does not leave us to hide. God seeks us out. He is pursuing us and is continually seeking to have a relationship with us. How are we responding to His pursuit?
And God is not pursuing us to punish us. Psalm 23:6 says, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life”. God pursues us in order to save us. In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus speaks of God’s pursuit in Luke 15. “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.” God is pursuing us to bring us back to the safety of His presence and into the community He has established. In Luke 19:10, Jesus tells us why He came. “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”
Just in case we are tempted to believe that God only pursues those who are doing their best to live according to His principles, let’s look at Isaiah 65:1-2. “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.
I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name. All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people.”
God loves each one of us too much to leave us on our own. The entire Bible is a record of the lengths God will go to in order to be reconciled with His image-bearing creations. The difficulty comes in the space between God’s pursuit and my surrender. From my experience, when God is seeking me and I have yet to turn myself over to Him in some area, His pursuit feels painful. Think of the sheep that is lost in the wilderness. It knows that it is not safe, but the noises that the sheep hears as the shepherd pursues might sound the same as the presence of a predator. The sheep has no capacity to discern where the noises are coming from, so its response is fear and to keep running. I think many times my response is the same.
I sense that God might be saying to each of us, “Stop running. It’s me. I’m trying to get to you in order to get you to safety. I know this sounds scary, but you have to stop running. As hard as it is…Trust me.”
God is pursuing us. Are we willing to stop running in order for Him to catch us and wrap us up in His loving embrace?
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Have you ever tried to hide from God? Why? What was the result?
How are you responding to God’s pursuit of you currently?
How confident are you in God’s desire to be in a relationship with you?
Write a prayer asking God to give you discernment about how He is pursuing you and what it would mean for you to surrender to Him.