“But as for you, people of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness and gentleness”. (1 Timothy 6:11)
In recent weeks I’ve found myself dashing from one thing to another. When I get time to sit down it’s to respond to emails, return tweets and post a Facebook message.
God doesn’t want us to just collapse exhausted in the armchair at the end of every day. He wants us to thrive, dream and inspire others. With all that I have going on, I don’t get huge amounts of time to receive or seek all that God has for me. Life is busy. Our feet keep moving and we struggle to grab the chances we have to pursue the things God has in store for us.
I was reading from the book of Timothy today. Paul reminds him that he needs to ‘pursue’ righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness and gentleness. These are all things that are hard to grab hold of and hard to track down. It can feel like another thing on the ‘to do’ list. Not only do I not have time for my relationship with God, but now I need to hunt down these things as well?
Maybe pursuing these things can only be done when we pursue the one that radiates them? We know God is love, so to pursue love we need to pursue the God of love. If we want to be steadfast, maybe we need to pursue the one who is steadfast. If we want to be faithful, then maybe we pursue the faithful one.
I’ve come to realise that I’m making myself tired by trying to chase after being godly, loving, patient and gentle. I’ve become tired by chasing good things, but not chasing the good God.
Religion is the idea of getting close to God. We do this by chasing godly things, but by making them more important than the one we were originally after. We don’t need to worry about pursuing faith, love and gentleness because those things will appear in us when we authentically pursue He who radiates them.
I have come to a place in my faith where all I want to do is get on my knees and pursue Him, because He is everything I need.
I’m a part of a gathering happening in May this year called The Pursuit, and this is exactly what we want to do for a weekend. Rather than chasing after ideas and concepts, we want to pursue the one who radiates and creates the very things we desire.
We want to pursue God – to create space for retreat in our busy, chaotic lives to pursue Him and His presence. Every time I have taken space to stop, to return to God’s presence, I’ve found a fresh sense of His love, energy, creativity and passion. I’ve also found that it’s been in these times that I have heard God speak to me – healing where there has been hurt and giving direction for what’s ahead.
God wants us to pursue the things of His nature: righteousness, godliness, faithfulness and love. But to do this we need to stop and spend time in His presence. When we find that all of those things are in Him, resting in Him allows those things to become part of who we are.
threads are so excited to be a part of The Pursuit where we’ll be hosting the Secret Doubt Garden. To find out more, head right this way.