Chapter One: Following Hard after God

"My soul follows hard after You: Your right hand upholds me." — Psalm 63:8

❦

Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, put simply, means that before a person can seek God, God must first have sought that person.

Before any sinful human being can even form a proper thought about God, a work of enlightenment must have already occurred within them. This enlightenment might be imperfect, yet it is genuinely divine, and it becomes the hidden cause behind all subsequent desiring, seeking, and praying.

We pursue God because—and only because—He first places within us the impulse that drives us toward Him. Our Lord Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them," and it is precisely this prevenient "drawing" by God that removes from us all grounds for taking personal credit for the act of approaching Him. The impulse to seek God originates entirely from God; however, the practical outworking of that impulse is our responsibility: it is our diligent pursuit of Him. Yet even as we pursue Him, we remain securely in His care, for the Psalmist says, "Your right hand upholds me."

In this divine "upholding" by God and the human act of "following," there is no contradiction at all. Everything begins with God, for as von Hügel has rightly observed, "God is always previous." Practically speaking—that is, where God's prior initiative meets our present response—the pursuit of God must be a deliberate and earnest action on our part. We must respond positively if this secret divine drawing is ever to lead to a meaningful encounter with God. The emotional intensity of this pursuit is vividly captured in the deeply personal language of the forty-second Psalm: "As the deer pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" This is deep calling unto deep, and every longing heart can recognize its voice

The doctrine of justification by faith—a thoroughly biblical truth and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and futile self-effort—has, in our generation, fallen into unfortunate company. It has been interpreted by many in such a way that it actually prevents people from coming to truly know God. The entire process of religious conversion has become mechanical and lifeless. Faith can now be professed without troubling one's moral life or causing any discomfort to the ego. Christ can be "accepted" without generating any particular love for Him in the heart of the one receiving Him. A person may be declared "saved," yet show no real hunger or thirst for God. In fact, believers are often taught explicitly to be content and encouraged to settle for little.

The modern scientist has lost God amidst the wonders of His creation; and we Christians are in real danger of losing God amidst the wonders of His Word. We have nearly forgotten that God is a Person, and, as such, He can be cultivated just as any relationship with another person can. It is inherent in personality to know and relate to other personalities, but full knowledge of another personality cannot be achieved through a single encounter. Genuine knowledge comes only through consistent, loving relationship over time.

Religion, if it is genuine, is fundamentally the response of created beings to their Creator. "This is life eternal," said Jesus, "that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." God is a Person, and in the profound depths of His powerful nature, He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and suffers like any other person. In making ourselves known to Him, we encounter Him directly and personally, never by mere logic or doctrine. It is a person-to-person interaction.

Being made in His image, we inherently possess the ability to know Him. Our problem in sin is not the absence of this capability, but rather the lack of the power to exercise it. The moment God's Spirit gives us life through regeneration, our whole being senses its kinship with God and leaps joyfully to recognize Him. This is the new birth—without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. Yet this experience is not an end but a beginning; it is the start of a glorious pursuit, the joyful exploration of the infinite riches found in God's nature. That's where we begin, I say, but where we ultimately end, no one has yet discovered—for in the awe-inspiring and mysterious depths of the Triune God there is neither limit nor end.

Shoreless Ocean, who can measure You?
Your own eternity surrounds You,
Divine Majesty!

To have found God and yet continue pursuing Him is the soul's paradox of love. Although scorned by the easily satisfied, nominally religious person, this paradox is deeply justified by the joyful experience of the burning hearts of true seekers. Saint Bernard beautifully expressed this paradox in lines easily understood by every soul of worship:

We taste You, O Living Bread,
Yet long to feast upon You still;
We drink from You, the Fountainhead,
Yet thirst our souls more deeply fill.

Draw near to the holy men and women of the past, and you'll soon feel the intensity of their desire for God. They mourned for Him, prayed earnestly, wrestled, and sought Him day and night, relentlessly, whether it was convenient or not. And when at last they found Him, the joy of that discovery was made all the sweeter by the length and earnestness of their pursuit. Moses leveraged the fact that he already knew God as an argument for wanting to know Him better. "Now, therefore, I pray You, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You, that I may find grace in Your sight." Then he ascended even higher, boldly making the audacious request, "I beseech You, show me Your glory." God openly delighted in this passionate request, and the following day He called Moses to the mountaintop, where He solemnly passed before him in a magnificent display of His glory.

David's life was an ongoing torrent of spiritual longing, and his psalms resonate powerfully with the deep cries of a seeker and the exuberant shouts of one who has found what he sought. Paul confessed that the driving force of his life was a passionate desire for Christ. "That I may know Him," he declared, was the overarching goal of his existence. To achieve this, he willingly gave up everything else, declaring, "Yes, indeed, I count all things loss for the excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, that I may gain Christ."

Our hymnody too echoes this passionate desire for God—a God whom the singer knows he has already found, yet whom he continues to seek. "His track I see, and I'll pursue," sang our fathers scarcely a generation ago, but that song is no longer heard among the gathered believers. Tragically, in our spiritually shallow times, our seeking has been conveniently done for us by our teachers. Everything has come to revolve around the initial act of "accepting" Christ—a phrase, incidentally, that doesn't appear in the Bible—and we aren't expected afterward to desire any further revelation of God to our souls. We have become ensnared in a spurious logic that suggests that once we've found Him, there's no further need to seek Him. This is presented as the ultimate orthodoxy, and it's assumed that no Bible-believing Christian could ever think otherwise. Thus, the entire testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on this subject is neatly set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a vast host of deeply spiritual saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture that would have sounded strange indeed to an Augustine, a Rutherford, or a Brainerd.

Yet even amidst this great spiritual chill, there remain some—thank God—who refuse to be content with superficial logic. They acknowledge the force of the argument, yet they turn away weeping to find some solitary place to pray, "O God, show me Your glory." They want to taste, touch with their hearts, and see with their inner eyes the profound wonder that is God.

I wish deliberately to encourage this powerful yearning after God. Our lack of it has brought us to our current spiritually impoverished condition. The rigid, lifeless quality in our religious lives is directly due to our lack of holy desire. Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual growth.

Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. It is tragic indeed that, for many of us, He waits in vain, and for far too long.

Every era has its own distinguishing features. Right now, we live in an age characterized by religious complexity. The simplicity of Christ is rarely evident among us. Instead, we have programs, methods, organizations, and a whirlwind of busy activities, which may occupy our time and attention but will never satisfy the deep longings of our hearts. The shallowness of our spiritual experiences, the hollowness of our worship, and the imitation of worldly promotional methods clearly indicate that, today, we know God only partially, and the peace of God hardly at all.

If we genuinely desire to find God amidst all these external religious trappings, we must first resolve within ourselves to pursue Him and then approach Him in simplicity. Now, as always, God reveals Himself to the humble and childlike, and conceals Himself in thick darkness from the proud and worldly-wise. We must simplify our approach. We must discard everything superficial and unnecessary—essentials are surprisingly few. We must abandon every effort to impress and approach Him with the open-hearted candor of a child. If we sincerely do this, we can be certain God will swiftly respond.

When religion has spoken its final word, there is very little that we need besides God Himself. The destructive habit of always seeking "God and something else" effectively prevents us from discovering Him in His fullness. It is in that "and" that we find our great sorrow.

The evil habit of seeking "God and..." effectively blocks our access to Him. In the "and" lies our great misfortune. If we omit the "and," we will soon find God, and in Him, we will find the very thing for which we have been yearning all our lives.

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so our souls must pant after God. Our Lord Himself gave us the best of counsel: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." There is nothing more liberating than to throw off the oppressive yoke of the world's constant demands. There is nothing more restful than to yield ourselves completely to the Father's loving care.

In the hour of our soul's awakening, God graciously makes Himself available to us, and the response of our hearts must be one of determined effort. David's resolve in the Psalm we quoted, "My soul follows hard after You," reveals the proper attitude of those who would find God. We must pursue Him relentlessly, passionately, and with all our being, for this is the only way He can truly be found.

Shoreless Ocean, who can measure You?
Your own eternity surrounds You,
Divine Majesty!

God will reveal Himself to the seeking heart, but only to those who search for Him earnestly and wholeheartedly. "You shall seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart," promises the Lord. The promise is sure and steadfast, but the condition must be fully met. Partial desire produces only partial results. Half-heartedness leads only to frustration and emptiness. If we hope to find God, we must set our hearts to seek Him diligently, determinedly, and persistently, until at last we enter His very presence.

O God, I have tasted Your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirst for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I long to long for You; I thirst to be made more thirsty still.

Show me Your glory, I pray, so that I may truly know You. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come away." Then grant me grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland where I have wandered for too long.

In Jesus' name. Amen.