God’s Passionate Pursuit of Your Heart

I was in college when I first eyed my husband. He was sitting on the floor at a friend’s Bible study gathering with his back against the wall, dressed in scruffy jeans and a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his muscular forearms. His thick brown hair and chocolate-brown eyes left me weak in the knees.

And the best part was that this handsome hunk of a man had a tattered Bible in his lap. He laughed easily, prayed humbly, and read intently. I was smitten from the first time I laid eyes on Steve Jaynes.

After a few weeks, he finally asked me out on a date. We continued seeing each other over the next several weeks. One night, Steve asked me to a college football game, and I agreed to go. Then he said, “Can I just ask?  Will you go with me to all of the football games for the rest of the year?”

“I’m not going to answer that question,” I replied. “You’ll just have to ask me each week.”

Looking back on those early days, what I was really saying was that I wanted to be pursued. None of this blanket invitation for the entire Fall business. I wanted to be wooed and won. Even though he had me the moment I saw him sitting on the shag carpet floor, I didn’t want him to know that.

I wanted him to show me I was worth putting forth the effort to capture my heart. Isn’t that the desire of every woman’s heart?

And nobody does it better than God.

The entire Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22:21 is a record of God’s passionate pursuit of the human heart. Noah, Abraham, Ruth, Naomi, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, a string of kings, both good and bad, intermingled with prophets wooing and warning God’s people.

We end the last chapter of the Old Testament with silence. And then 400 years later, God breaks the holy hush with the cry of a babe in a manger as the story picks back up in Bethlehem.

From God’s first question in Genesis 3:9, “Where are you?” until Jesus’ final words in John 19:30, “It is finished,” we see God drawing mankind with cords of kindness that sometimes appear anything but kind—drawing people back to Himself with ties of love (Hosea 11:4).

We’ve wiggled and wrangled trying to break free of those cords, but He continues to lasso us with love and draw us in again.

Passionate pursuit. He’s pulled out all the stops. Moved heaven and earth—literally—to win us back, to reestablish the glory that was lost in the Garden.

Most of us feel that we have to pursue God continually, as if He is hard to find. And as long as we believe that, our faith journey will be difficult. It will be arduous.

But didn’t Jesus say, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)?

And yet, easy and light are not words many of us would use to describe our faith journey.

God tunes the violin and pulls the bow across the strings of our heart and waits for us to recognize the melody wooing us into relationship with him.

God has had His eye on you since before the foundation of the earth. The Message paraphrase says it this way: “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love” (Ephesians 1:4 MSG).

My heart resonates with the words of Simon Tugwell: “So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about—He is looking for us.”

Sweet friend, I want you to ponder that truth today: God is pursuing you! Through the beauty of a flower in wintertime. The sun reflecting off the snow. The whisper of the wind. The love letters in His Word.

Heavenly Father, thank You for pursuing me! I would not even have known that I needed You if You hadn’t stirred my heart in the first place. Open my eyes to see the ways that You are pursuing me still. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Leave a comment and share one way that you have sensed God wooing you over the past few months.

Digging Deeper

Friend, this is a message that changed my life. I discovered that closeness to God wasn’t accomplished by doing more for Him but being more in touch with Him throughout the day. If you would like to learn more about how to recognize God’s passionate pursuit of your heart every day, then this book is for you: A Sudden Glory: God’s Lavish Response to Your Ache for Something More. It also includes a Bible Study Guide.

How’s your prayer life? Need a little help? Check out Praying for Your Child From Head to Toe and Praying for Your Husband from Head to Toe… 30 Day Guides to Powerful and Effective Scripture-Based Prayer. (Perfect for Grandmas praying for their grandchildren!)