"God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there."
~ A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
I know.
Stuff doesn't always have to have some deeper meaning. Sometimes strawberries are just strawberries, clouds are just clouds. Sometimes a flower is just a flower and we don't have to delve some deep meaning from it.
I know.
But that's not always how I think, so that's not always how I write. And, well, it's my blog and I'll pontificate if I want to. And use big words.
Yesterday morning I hunted out strawberries in the garden and I thought about pursuit. My strawberry bed needs some attention, some weeding out and thinning down, some replanting of those stringers that drop new plants wherever they choose to land. I had to dig around for the ripest berries and each one found was a treasure, because I love strawberries and because I beat my kids to it.
In a larger sense, the pursuit of ripe strawberries makes the berries themselves more precious. The strawberries don't stand and call for attention. They hide under the shade of ginormous leaves, and every now and then you spot a glimpse of red and you know to look there.
Pursuing something can be frustrating. It can be discouraging if we don't find that thing we're after in the time frame that we hoped. It can make us doubt when the short trip we thought we were taking leads to months of ambiguity and fruitlessness. Maybe years of it.
There are good things in my life that have been easily won. I have many blessings that have fallen into my lap simply by the grace of God, without struggle and strife and endless searching after them. Other blessings have come by way of the complicated grace of God.
Needing to fight for something does not mean God doesn't want us to have it, and those proverbial "closed doors" can sometimes be simply God's redirecting.
Well, I suppose a closed door always redirects you. Unless you beat it down. Or unlock it. Or turn the handle because it's not really locked in the first place...
I digress.
My thoughts are just this: something that is hard or doubtful or uncertain, something that makes you wonder if you're "on the right path", is worth pursuing because it teaches you more about that object desired, and about your own desires.
The knowledge of God is eternal life. Forever. Endless. Pursuing that can be frustrating and you can feel misled or off track or discouraged, or dizzy from the circles, but
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. ~ John 17:3
We have forever to pursue God.
We need to start now.
It's a forever-urgency and we don't have to stress over this struggle we often have of trying to follow God. We have forever and today and all the unanswered questions keep us keepin' on, don't they?
That thing you dream about doing, the person you long to be, the plans you want to make but are afraid of because what if they're not God's plans for your life - all those are part of this pursuit. Every question we encounter is part of our pursuit of a God who has a perfect will for us, but has given us the freedom to choose and agonize.
So He made life mysterious.
I hope you sleuth out some mysteries today and know God more because of the pursuit.
(Here's a mystery: last night I dreamt that a hoard of children raided my garden and ate every.ripe.thing. Seriously. What's that about?)
*****
Pontificate: v. to speak or write and give your opinion about something as if you knew everything about it and only your opinion was correct.