TheoCenTriC

Are you weary of chasing God? Are you worried that if you do not strive hard enough to seek God that you may fail to find God? Are you overwhelmed by your efforts to get God’s attention? Are you tired of trying to win God’s love?

If so, Tim King and Frank Martin have a word for you, “If you are weary in chasing God, remember, God is chasing you!” The good news is that God is madly in love with you and is pursuing you with reckless abandon:

God has never gone a minute without thinking of you, wooing you, whispering in your ear, I’m right here…

God’s pursuit of you has absolutely nothing to do with your level of obedience and righteousness or your dedication to the spiritual disciplines…

He longs for an intimate relationship even more than you do. He is much more devoted to chasing you than you are to chasing him. (7-8)

Ultimately, it’s not about our faith; it’s about God’s faithfulness! And the good news is that God’s faithfulness is steadfast, sure, and absolute. 2 Timothy 2:13 reads: “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”

The Divine Romance

We are all caught up in the Greatest Story of all – a Romance – “the Story of a Lover in furious pursuit of his beloved.” And the furious pursuit is fueled and sustained by God’s unrelenting faithfulness. Unfortunately, the beauty of this facet of God’s love has been obscured by our focus on wrath instead of faithfulness:

The “greatest Story ever told” has been perverted and transformed into the “scariest story ever told.” Someone decided that the wrath of God is a more effective hammer for evangelism than the faithfulness of God, and since then it has been wielded so freely and wildly that we have lost sight of the real Story. The Story of God’s faithfulness, even in the midst of our faith-less-ness, has been obscured. Love has been crowded out by fear. (31)

God seeks to woo us with love – to draw us willingly into an intimate relationship. Because God desires our willing participation, God refuses to use bribery or force to win us over. King and Martin write,

God could have decided to buy our love with the gift of a pain-free life and the promise of answering every prayer exactly as we desire. But he doesn’t want our purchased hearts. He could conquer our stubborn will by displaying his might and supremacy and scaring us into submission. But that would gain him nothing more than our overpowered hearts.

God wants our willing hearts, so he chose to become a humble servant, to draw us into his love instead of buying us off or forcing us to love him.

Wouldn’t you rather be drawn into a relationship than be pushed into one? Wouldn’t you rather glide down the center aisle of your free will than stare down the barrel of a shotgun? Wouldn’t you rather give your heart than have your heart taken? (19-20)

The Great Story of God’s furious pursuit of humanity is the subject of sacred Scripture. It is God’s story, not ours. And yet, the God-centeredness of the Great Story works to our benefit: “The most powerful truth in Scripture is that all of Scripture is about God. It is not about you, yet it has everything to do with you” (69).

Because the story is not ultimately about us, the ending of the story is not up to us: “When we begin with the story of ourselves, we’re tempted to think that the Big Story is about us. We start to believe that we’re responsible for bringing about a happy ending, that in some small but desperate way the plot resolution is up to us” (89). This pressures us to spiritually wear ourselves out in pursuit of an elusive and evasive God.

But the truth is that we are objects of God’s chase. We are being furiously pursued by none other than the living God. The Story of stories is not about our faith; it’s about God’s faithfulness. We no longer have to feverishly fight to maintain perfect faith. Instead, we can rest in God’s faithfulness. Our challenge is not to catch God by chasing him, but to accept God’s pursuit of us (70). Our ultimate identity is not that of God-chasers, but of the God-chased!

It is hard for us to believe that this is God’s consistent attitude toward us. King and Martin admit, “I don’t think God is surprised when we have trouble accepting this metaphor… I can think of hundreds of reasons that God should reject me, but only a few that might make him want to glance in my direction. Isn’t that true for us all?” (140) The thought of being the object of divine pursuit is overwhelming. Our tendency is to assume that God is remote and that we are more interested in a relationship with God than God is.

But God’s furious passion is evidenced by “a lasting symbol of undying love… a symbol born of sacrifice” (154). This ultimate expression of God’s faithfulness toward us is the cross of Christ. The authors write,

What did the great Romancer do when he wanted to present us with a token of his love and commitment? He made a sacrifice beyond comprehension. A sacrifice so great, so grand, so unfathomable, so “other than” anything you and I could possibly imagine that it left an indelible mark in eternity. (154)

God deals with our sin through God’s faithfulness. “Jesus’ death for our sins proves the truth of God’s faithfulness, even in the midst of our most horrific sin” (32). In spite of our sin, God is faithful to pursue, woo, and win us. Nothing – not even our sin, the ultimate expression of unfaithfulness – can stop God’s expression of love.

Again, it’s not about our faith; it’s about God’s faithfulness!

This is a wonderful, accessible, and profound book about God’s faithfulness. It will surely encourage those who are new in the faith as well as comfort those who are more advanced. The truth of God’s furious pursuit is a subject that never fails to stir the affections of God’s beloved. I certainly hope this book receives a wide reading and a passionate reception!

Quotes excerpted from Furious Pursuit: Why God Will Never Let You Go by Tim King and Frank Martin
© Richard J. Vincent, 2006