God Pursues Us
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada telling you what I love about God.
First off, I love that God does not bless us begrudgingly. There’s eagerness in God’s desire to pour out His blessings on His children. God doesn’t wait for us to come to Him. He seeks us out because it is His great joy to do us good. God’s not waiting for us; He’s pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23, verse 6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me (not just follow me but pursue me) all the days of my life.”
And do I love that. Wow! God pursues me with His goodness and mercy. I experience His goodness every single day and so do you. Every time we wake up to the gift of a new dawn, whether it’s sunshine or showers, it is from the good of His hand. Friendships and work to do, and peace and safety on our streets, good food on our tables, encouraging words over a cup of coffee with a neighbor; all of it is goodness from God’s hand. And not only does He pursue us with His goodness, He loves to show mercy.
God’s not hesitant. He’s not indecisive in His desire to do good to you and me. I love the way John Piper says that, “If God were angry, that anger is released by a stiff safety lock, but His mercy, that has a hair trigger.” God is so ready to shower His mercy when we come to Him in humble, open-handed spiritual poverty. Even, even when God knew back on Mt. Sinai that His people—the ones that He just rescued out of Egypt—were down there about to carouse in drunken stupor, He says to Moses, “I am the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.”
God’s delight for His people is all over the map of His Word. Like Deuteronomy, Chapter 30, where it says, “The Lord will again take delight in prospering you.” I just love that. He’s never irritable; He’s never edgy. His anger never has a short fuse. Instead He is energetic with unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of His delights. And we—simple you and me, we, you and I—are one of His greatest delights. We are the epitome of His creation, and the cherished bride of Jesus, His beloved Son.
Now, this is so hard for us to comprehend. We have such a hard time making it through the day just by coping, let alone thriving. Our emotions go up and down. We get bored one day and feel hopeful the next. We’re discouraged one moment, and excited the next. But again, Piper says that: “We are like little geysers that gurgle and sputter and pop erratically.” You’ve seen those Geysers in Yellowstone Park, right? Except for maybe Old Faithful, all of them let off steam erratically; never to be relied on, so don’t get too close. You might get burned. Not like God, He’s like a great Niagara Falls. He’s the real Old Faithful. He’s like the great falls of Niagara steadily, constantly pouring goodness and mercy, always reliable. I mean, you look at Niagara Falls, 186,000 tons of water crashing over the edge every minute, and you can’t help but think: Surely this can’t keep up, not at this force year after year after year but it does.
And that’s the way God is when it comes to doing us good. He never grows weary of pouring out His mercy and goodness, 186,000 tons of it constantly, year after year. To Him, showing us His delight never gets boring. He is heaven-bent on doing us good, and the Niagara Falls of His grace has no end.
© Joni and Friends
