“God is always seeking you.” Louie Giglio
For a long time {like most of my life}, I believed one lie that shaped my life with God. The lie being that if I wanted a good relationship with God, it was all dependent upon my effort and performance. I believed that I needed to read my Bible, pray, and fast and that in doing these things, God might turn His attention and affection towards me. I believed there were things I could do that would make God more pleased with me, make God love me more. And as you might imagine, viewing God like that led to what could only be described as a rollercoaster relationship with Him.
Life with God was not filled with twists and turns because God wanted to make things more adventurous for me. No, the twists and turns were a direct result of me simply being inconsistent in the performance I thought God wanted from me. And maybe worse than the inconsistency was the constant feeling of letting God down… feeling like I was a big failure to God.
If that’s you… if you are believing what I believed for years and years, please recognize that to be a lie and repent of it. Repenting of that lie not only set me free, but for the first time, I began to enjoy life with God rather than carry an unnecessary man-made weight of disappointment.
For the past 31 Days of Fasting, I’ve had to remain on guard against that lie rearing its ugly head once again. The lie that says God is more pleased with me because I’m seeking Him through fasting and praying. I need to constantly remind myself of this one truth:
I’M SEEKING GOD BECAUSE HE FIRST SOUGHT ME
Every moment, every day God is seeking you out. He desires you to experience His goodness, kindness, grace, love, and so much more. He desires these things for you and me, not because of our fasting and praying, but because our God is a God who is always pursuing us.
July might be coming to end but what will never come to an end is God’s pursuit of you. Rest easy knowing that you are fully loved, and fully pursued by a gracious and powerful God who simply wants you to enter into and enjoy His presence both now and forevermore.
“And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20
