High Speed Pursuit

In the 23rd Psalm you may recall the last line “Surely Goodness and Mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The word “follow”, David used, in Hebrew is
“radaph” meaning to pursue or run after.. are some of the definitions. A lot more action than I imagined.

This week I listened to Genesis on my audio Bible App with an ear to hear when and why God Spoke to people and they spoke back, their prayer life or even better their conversational intimacy with God. So I noted that the first real discussion with God took place after Adam had totally blown it, and I mean totally. God came after him in, high speed pursuit, “Where are you?” and the conversation that follows, but in the end God covers them.

The Next conversation when I had ears to hear it, blows my mind. We don’t have a record of the conversation with the good brother, Abel, no, we have a record of the conversation with the black sheep, the one, not the 90 and 9. First God warns him, “Sin is at your door.” Then after Cain literally commits the first murder in cold blood, God comes after him, so similar to Adam, asking a question surely God knows the answer to, “Where is your brother?” Once again in the end after this kid is seemingly beyond hope God saves his life by putting a mark on him. Hmmm, I thought sin disqualified me from a prayer life?

Skipping over a great deal more shenanigans with Abraham, Issac and Jacob, and believe me there is plenty there worth listening to, but the next one that totally and I mean totally blows my mind, is Aaron, yes Aaron while God has Moses up on Mt. Sinai and is taking two chapters telling him how he is to make Aaron’s sacred garments and how Moses should anoint and consecrate his brother to a Royal Priesthood, Aaron is at that very time down at the camp melting gold with his infamous story, “I threw gold in the fire and out came this calf”. Talk about grace and mercy in high speed pursuit of someone. Yet, God had Moses direct the most sacred garments I have ever heard about made for this POSER, apparently God knew something we didn’t see.

Keep going and eventually we find ourselves back at Jonah, with all his bad attitude, God is in High Speed Pursuit, not once but twice. Oh, yes, it would appear that a really great time to get close to God is when I least would expect to, that is when I totally blow it, (obviously, not blow it on purpose to get next to God), SURELY, GOODNESS AND MERCY WILL PURSUE and RUN AFTER ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE…. and I will dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER!!