Pursuing God

We can be passionate about a lot of things in life. Some pursue their careers with extreme energy. They spend long hours working and do all they can to advance. Some pursue their favorite team with extreme loyalty. They may even memorize the statistics for each player. And some pursue their hobby or favorite recreation with reckless abandon.

A.W. Tozer wrote a Christian classic entitled “The Pursuit of God”. I wonder if we can be identified as someone who is passionately pursing God. I have noticed that in the scriptures people who had already found God continued to pursue Him. They were believers but they wanted a deeper knowledge and a daily experience of knowing Him more intimately. I think of Moses who experienced God in the burning bush in Exodus 3. Yet after many months wandering in the wilderness putting up with the complaining Israelites, he needed a fresh experience of God. He approached the Lord and said: "Please, show me Your glory" (Exodus 33:18). David who was a man after God’s own heart said in Psalm 42:1-2: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” In the New Testament, Paul experienced God for the first time on the Damascus road. He was used by God to teach deep scriptural truths to the church, but he admitted that he had not yet attained all he needed to know about God. Listen to his passion in Philippians 3:10: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death”.

Are you satisfied with your present knowledge and current relationship with God or do you want more? Does your heart cry out with Moses: show me Your glory? Can you say with David, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God? And can you groan like Paul, that I may know Him and His power? May we have the passion to continue to pursue God even after we have found Him.