Pursued

It’s springtime in Ohio and love is in the air!  Well, love is always in the air somewhere, but the wild turkeys in my yard are in full-blown courting season right now.  I love to see the Tom turkeys fan out those beautiful tail feathers and unashamedly and literally chase a Hen, trying to win her affection.  It’s a kind of special dance they do and it’s a treat to watch the pursuit.  Just now I was watching the Toms eagerly chasing the Hens in circles.  It’s the “dance” of God’s perfect creation, no matter the species.

Being pursued in the human realm makes our hearts flutter and our temperatures rise, also.  Sometimes it is easy to be won over, as it was in my case, when I met my husband just before Valentine’s Day and then married him in early July.  It was a quick courtship but neither of us wanted to waste any time in our already “retired” stage of life.  We all have a story of courtship and love to share, don’t we?

There is a story in the spiritual realm, too.  Do you know that God pursues His people?  If you are already a Christian, one of God’s chosen with your name engraved in the palm of His hand and inscribed in the Book of Life, you know that He pursued you and called you out of darkness.  “I Peter 2:9, 10, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are a people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  I Peter 1:15, “But just as He who called you to be holy, so be holy in all you do.”  Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

God wins people over in many ways.  It may be through a minister’s sermon; a Bible study; a friend’s gentle example; or a neighbor’s friendship.  I encourage you to be open to leading someone to Christ, but also, if you have not received HIM yet, not to resist the Spirit’s sweet pursuing of you to receive Christ.  I believe that Christ will return for His own one day soon.  We’ll need to be ready and waiting!  Even so, Lord, come quickly!