Scott Fillmer

I love this shot, it just feels like my life over the past few months, and it makes a great photo of the day today. I took this shot with my iPhone on the way to work in the rain a few weeks ago, and in a blur of motion, when I looked in the mirror this fog and bright sun filled the road behind me. It reminded me right then that God is chasing me, pursuing me to a deeper relationship with Him, not to be able to get more things checked off my to-do list. It’s a constant battle to slow down when we live in one of the fastest paced cultures in the world, but the second I took this shot that’s what I felt. Not that God couldn’t catch up with me, but that I was trying to outrun God in some way.

Thanks be to God that He is always pursuing His people, even when we are trying to run away, whether on purpose or just from being too busy. In real brief theological terms, we call this sanctification, or the process of being made into God’s likeness (see Romans 8.26-30). All throughout Scripture this is what it tells us, over and over again, God is in fast pursuit of His people. One place this is evident in particular is in John 17 in the middle of the High Priestly Prayer. Jesus is praying for us, in pursuit of us starting in verse 9 He says “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me… keep them in your name… I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost… keep them from the evil one… sanctify them in the truth… so even as we are one, they may be one.”

How great is that, to know that Jesus actually prayed for his people, and is continuing to pursue us every day. The flip side of course is when we continue to ignore that relationship, and continue to try to outrun God’s pursuit. Still, we are assured that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness,” and intercedes for us just when we need it.