Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever.
Psalm 23:6
It surprises me all over again each time I am reminded that God pursues me. His love is neither conditional nor passive. He desires. He initiates. He reaches out.
My role is to respond. My role is to say yes. My role is to receive.
I have a scene in mind. Imagine one of those swashbuckling, boisterous adventure movies that take the hero into the bowels of a cave. Suddenly a great body of water breaks loose, and the hero runs with all his might—breathing labored, sweat flying, face flushed—working as hard as he can to escape the relentless wall of water that is pursuing him. Finally the water picks him up and floods over him. The water takes over all the effort, sweeps the hero up into its mighty center, and carries him to safety. The hero is rescued by what he had put so much effort into resisting. Can you see it?
That’s the picture this promise paints. God’s goodness and unfailing love are chasing us down. All we have to do is slow down our self-effort and let them catch us up and sweep us along. Then the whole earth becomes the Lord’s house. Wherever we are, surrounded and carried forward by the Father’s goodness and unfailing love, we are in our Daddy’s house. Safe at home under his rule. Secure in his love. Sheltered by his presence.
When you stop and let this knowledge wash over you, do you feel the restfulness it brings? Are you released from trying to figure out how and where to find God’s love and goodness? Let his tenacious, determined, pursuing love catch you up and carry you in its flow.
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