Encountering God’s Love: Face to FaceChikamu

Day Two: Pursuit

Yesterday we were left hiding, while a powerful question hung in the air. This question still speaks today, reverberating through fear-filled hearts, while simultaneously echoing in hope-filled spirits: Where are you?

Moses encountered a similar question one afternoon while going through the motions of everyday life. He was content in the life he had shaped after locking his past securely in a closet of forgetfulness, but some closets are not meant to remain closed. Those are the hiding places our loving Father often visits – interrupting our wilderness, calling us toward greatness. Though Moses was a murderer who ran away to escape justice, he could not outrun the love of one intent on seeing him free. God knew that in Moses’ freedom, others also would become free. 

God always speaks to our destiny, never our inadequacy. We see this in Numbers 13 when the Israelites saw themselves as ‘grasshoppers’ instead of landowners; or the Samaritan woman who saw herself as rejected instead of called (John 4); or the apostle Peter in who saw himself as failure instead of a leader (John 21). Love sees purpose, not position, and a mark of spiritual maturity is realizing that, quite simply, this life is not about us. We have been created for a plan that extends much further than our own personal dreams and desires. 

Although there is always someone on the other side of our breakthrough, God’s pursuit of us remains personal; and he has been pursuing you since before creation. He created you in your mother’s womb, watching over you as you took shape and on an ordained day entered your new world. Every breath you took was a breath that he gave; every cry you cried was a cry that he heard. You were never out of his sight and most assuredly never outside his love. As you grew he watched you experience the pain of rejection and when you cried tears of loneliness he reached out a hand of love. His presence was always, and is always, with you. This love has never stopped loving you. If it could become deeper it would, but the depth of his love already extends beyond the deepest blue sea and wider than an endless horizon. There is nothing you can do to earn his love and most surely nothing you can do to lose it. He loves you as much as he will ever love you, as you are, right now.

Reflect: 

How do you feel reading the last paragraph?

Are there any lies you are currently believing about how God sees you?

Spend time allowing yourself to be loved by God - ask him to show his love to you and then wait for his presence to envelop you in grace and peace.