Pursued by Love

Hey there, and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading, titled Pursued by Love, was written by Lisa M. Samra. I Fled Him, Down the Nights and Down the Days, opens the famous poem The Hound of Heaven by English poet Francis Thompson. Thompson describes Jesus' unceasing pursuit, despite his efforts to hide, or even run away, from God.

The poet imagines God speaking to him and saying, I am he whom thou seekest. The pursuing love of God is a central theme of the Book of Jonah. The prophet received an assignment to tell the people of Nineveh, who were notorious enemies of Israel, about their need to turn to God. But instead, Jonah ran away from the Lord. He secured passage on a ship sailing in the opposite direction of Nineveh, but the vessel was soon overcome by a violent storm. To save the ship's crew, Jonah was thrown overboard before being swallowed by a large fish. In his own beautiful poem, Jonah recounted that despite his best efforts to run away from God, God pursued him. When Jonah was overcome by his situation and needed to be saved, he cried out to God in prayer and turned toward his love. God answered and provided rescue, not only for Jonah, but for his Assyrian enemies as well. As described in both poems, there may be seasons of our lives when we try to run from God.

Even then, Jesus loves us and is at work guiding us back into a restored relationship with him. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Jonah chapter 2 verses 1-9. In my distress, I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the current swirled about me. All your waves and breakers swept over me.

I said, I have been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The engulfing waters threatened me. The deep surrounded me. Seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down.

The earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say salvation comes from the Lord.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, many of us can relate our salvation story to this passage. How many times and in how many places did we try to hide from you? We thought we were in charge of our own destiny, and we thought we could do all of this life on our own. But you shined light into those places and drew us into your loving arms. Thank you for lovingly pursuing us with your relentless love. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.