In Active Pursuit

Have you ever had that weird feeling that someone is watching you? or, even worse, following you? It's somewhat creepy to constantly be looking over your shoulder, wondering if there's someone behind you with a target on your back, searching you out to do you harm. I don't know about you guys, but whenever I have a feeling like that, my fight or flight adrenaline quickly kicks in, so that should trouble arise (which, thank the Lord, it hasn't) I'm ready to be on the run!

Something that God has really been showing me (even when I'm not realizing it at the time!) is that there really is someone who's always following me. Always watching me. Always in pursuit of me, with one target in mind:  my heart. That someone is Jesus. From the beginning of time He has been in active pursuit of my soul, desperately seeking out for me, reaching out to me, trying to take hold of me, but for some reason, He has not succeeded. And that is certainly no fault of His. 

Just like when I get that creepy feeling that someone is watching or following me, deep down in my heart of hearts, in the depths of my soul I know that Jesus pursuing me. But even though I know it's for my best, for my good, that fight or flight feeling still seems to initiate, and I end up running away from the very One Who has the best of intentions for me. Why, oh why is this the case?

Over the past week or so, I have consistently been getting into conversations with people (close friends, mostly) about a topic near to my heart (perhaps too near...). It finally, FINALLY hit me today that the repeated occurrences of people talking to me about that very thing were not merely coincidences; these were people God was using to bring attention away from what I was holding so close and put all the focus on HIM! Sounds so obvious, right? Well initially it wasn't to me, but I finally figured it out, thanks to the Holy Spirit's continual and consistent and repeated prodding.

So all this time I've been acting like Gomer, in flight mode, running and running and running away from Hosea, a man who loved and pursued her in spite of her adultery and unfaithfulness. I am that unfaithful bride, who's chosen to run after things of this world, things that don't satisfy, don't sustain, don't do anything for me except draw me away from my eternal and perfect Lover, the one who has faithfully pursued me in the midst of my unfaithfulness. All this time I was deceiving myself, assuming that I was indeed the good soil, being fruitful and productive and mature in the Lord, when in reality His seed of the Word was being choked out by all of the thorny, temporal things of this life I've allowed to take priority.

Well, it's about that time to fall back in love with my Savior, to be His faithful bride, because to learn to be faithful and to love a fraction of the amount that He does would be to be faithful and to love in an incredible way, a way that I've been unable to do apart from Him. I feel like David in Psalm 51:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. (emphasis mine)

I praise the Lord for His patience, His long-suffering, His love, and for His active pursuit of my heart; it is because of Jesus that I now am able to repent and return.