Why pursuit? What does it look like to fully, without hesitation, passionately pursue? Why would a God who has and is everything and needs nothing choose to pursue? Yet an even better question is, why do I not?
Pursuit…this word is running on a loop through my mind tonight. I am not exactly sure what event or circumstance or situation brought on this pondering, but it’s there for a reason, so I will explore.
When I begin to attempt to comprehend that God, the Creator, the Author of Life, authentically, passionately, and relentlessly pursued me since before time, I struggle to grasp the full understanding of what that actually means. So as I often do, I look at life through the lens of my heart as a parent. I am constantly amazed at how often my Father will use my children to show me how he feels about me.
When I watch my daughters pursue something they want and desire deeply, I see them pursue it relentlessly until either they achieve what they were pursuing or something altars the course of their pursuit that just simply does not allow them to pursue any further. The tenacity and vigor with which they pursue is inspiring and convicting at the same time, but why? I believe they have yet to fully understand or grasp that as part of their Christian walk, they are to pursue Jesus daily, but maybe that is because they understand far better than I do that HE is pursuing them, all the time. I have never heard them express any doubt HE is there for them or right with them, always. Oh how I yearn to have their faith, their pure and uninhibited belief. What has happened to my pursuit, my faith, my belief? Am I so overcome by the world and events that I have allowed my ability to pursue be stolen from me by the enemy?
Jesus said, “I have overcome the world,” and he has. So if he has, and I believe and know he has, then what stops me? I sense that my faith (what I believe) has become too intertwined with what I feel. Ed Smith, the founder of Theophostic Prayer or now called Transformational Prayer, is known for this phrase, “We feel what we believe.” I find this to be a very accurate and immensely true statement. How then can I capture what my children believe, how can I restore my belief to a place where I will pursue Jesus with reckless abandon?
I must have faith like my children. I must choose to put off the old man and put on the new man, be the child who loves his Father desperately. I must crucify the enemy within, the flesh. You see, I am my Father’s son, and his heart is good and he gave me a new heart, so my heart is good. Pursuit is born of the heart and the heart is born to pursue, therefore pursue I must and pursue I will, for the heart of a warrior never dies. The heart of the warrior lives in constant pursuit. I choose to pursue life and be the man I want to be.
