In Hot Pursuit

For the last week or more, I've been waking up earlier than normal. At first during these early wake ups, I didn't know what to do about it. I needed sleep. What was wrong with me? I would lie there and just try to force myself back to sleep, but that wasn't working at all.

On the second or third day, I decided to just switch the light on and do some reading. Why not? I was wide awake. I started a book that I longed to read, The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. So I read a couple of chapters, read some Scripture, prayed and then got on with my day. And this has been the early AM pattern all week or more now. Today is Saturday, and it has been much the same. Now I did get to sleep in a half hour longer, but after that, I was wide awake at 5:30 AM without the alarm. And this from the girl who once was able to sleep in until noon on Saturdays...

So why the change? What is going on? I can't relate all of it, but this I will say that I've been praying and pouring my heart out to GOD and asking HIM to reveal HIMSELF to me. So I don't think it's an accident or a coincidence that I am waking up early. I think my FATHER is providing me with an opportunity that I have been remiss in taking HIM up on...getting to know HIM and establishing that intimacy that I have long desired.

As quoted in The Sacred Romance (page 81), Simon Tugwell says:

"So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about; He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight of Him, in high rebellion against Him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape Him, we run straight into His arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our prayer is in His determination to save us, and He will not give in."

Eldredge continues that train of thought:

"The story that is the Sacred Romance begins not with God alone, the Author at his desk, but God in relationship, intimacy beyond our wildest imagination, heroic intimacy. The Trinity is at the center of the universe; perfect relationship is at the heart of all reality...We long for intimacy because we are made in the image of perfect intimacy." (taken from The Sacred Romance page 73)

"The gospel says that we, who are God's beloved, created a cosmic crisis. It says we, too, were stolen from out True Love and that he launched the greatest campaign in the history of the world to get us back. God creates us for intimacy with him. When we turn our back on him he promised to come for us. He sent personal messengers; he used beauty and affliction to recapture our hearts. After all else failed, he conceived the most daring of plans. Under the cover of night he stole into the enemy's camp incognito, the Ancient of Days disguised as newborn. The Incarnation, as Philip Yancey reminds us, was a daring raid into enemy territory. The whole world lay under the power of the evil one and we were held in the dungeons of darkness. God risked it all to rescue us. Why? What is it that he sees in us that causes him to act the jealous lover, to lay siege both on the kingdom of darkness and on our own idolatries as if on Troy--not to annihilate, but to win us back once again for himself? This fierce intention, this reckless ambition that shoves all conventions aside, willing literally to move heaven and earth--what does he want from us?

"We've been offered many explanations. From one religious camp we're told that what God wants is obedience, or sacrifice, or adherence to the right doctrines, or morality. Those are the answers offered by conservative churches. The more therapeutic churches suggest that no, God is after our contentment, or happiness or self-actualization, or something else along those lines. He is concerned about all these things, of course, but they are not his primary concern. What he is after is us--our laughter, our tears, our dreams, our fears, our heart of hearts." (taken from The Sacred Romance page 91)

"It seems remarkable, incredible, too good to be true. There really is something desirable within me, something the King of the universe has moved heaven and earth to get." (taken from The Sacred Romance page 95)

"We've been more than noticed. God has pursued us from farther than space and longer ago than time. Our romance is far more ancient than the story of Helen of Troy. God has had us in mind since before the Foundations of the World. He loved us from the beginning of time, has come for us, and now calls us to journey towards him, with him, for the consummation of our love." (taken from The Sacred Romance page 97)