Way back when, Adam and Eve transgressed, and God saw. And he came looking, as they attempted to hide. Nothing has changed. We still transgress, we still hide, and God still seeks.
"Where Are You?"
May 21, 2010
"We were created for God."
Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.
"Every living soul belongs to me.”
Ezekiel 18:4
"We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. "No man can come to me," said our Lord, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him," and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming."
A. W. Tozer THE PURSUIT OF GOD
"Christianity is not about the sinner finding God, but about God finding the sinner."
David F. Wells ABOVE ALL EARTHLY POWERS
The idea of a seeking God can be a bit threatening. In MIRACLES, C. S. Lewis addressed the concept with the use of words that only he could muster:
"The Pantheist's God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. HE WILL NOT PURSUE YOU.
There is no danger that at any time heaven and earth should flee away at His glance. If He were the truth, then we could really say that all the Christian images of kingship were a historical accident of which our religion ought to be cleansed.
It is with a shock that we discover them to be INDESPENSABLE. You have had a shock like tht before, in connection with smaller matters - when the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness.
So here; the shock comes at the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following.
It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. "Look out!' we cry, "it's alive!" And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back - I would have done so myself if I could - and proceed no further with Christianity.
An "impersonal God"? Well and good.
A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness inside our own heads? Better still.
A formless life-force surgin through us, a vast power which we can tap? Best of all.
But GOD HIMSELF, ALIVE, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed - the hunter, king, husband - that is QUITE ANOTHER MATTER.
There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall?
There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (Man's search for God"!) suddenly draw back.
SUPPOSING WE REALLY FOUND HIM? We never meant it to come to that! WORSE STILL, SUPPOSING HE HAD FOUND US?"