I love a love story with a certain storyline:
We will call them one and the other.
One is in love with the other, who is not so sure about the first one. One pursues the other, relentlessly, despite all efforts being pushed away by the other. Not pursuit as in pushy, inappropriate or abusive, but pushy as in being willing to go to any lengths for the other‘s good, even if it is never reciprocated.
Basically, one does not love for their own good, but for the good of the other … the one values the other beyond their own needs and wants, for their needs and wants come to serve the other. The love of the one is so great that, if required, they will even stay away from the other.
You see this storyline in movies such as Love Affair (1939, 1994), An Affair to Remember (1956) or in the Francine Rivers book, Redeeming Love.
Of course, the premise of such a story is a tale as old as time ( 😉 ), for it is the premise of God’s love for His created, his bride, us.
He pursues us, endlessly, every day of our lives.
He is ever available, willing and wanting for us to receive Him … his love and presence and guidance. Yet, he is not rude, not pushy … for He knows that love is best, most sincere, when it is given freely … when we choose to love.
My most favorite poetic writing is by Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven. In this poem, the writer is equating God’s pursuit of himself to that of a hound. I think I love this ode because I can so easily see myself in the writer’s pursuit of life, with my back firmly in God’s face. Through much of the poem we read of fleeing Him, avoiding Him, Ignoring Him. Though I (we?) do not acknowledge His presence, we are always aware that he is there … here.
This poem ends with a not so classic happily ever after. The pursued turns to his Pursuer, takes his hand. But I think that he, like many of us, like CS Lewis, simply gave in … knowing that there was simply nothing left to run to that is better than who is chasing after us.
It is after we turn (often dejected) to Him, tired of our running, tired of our own pursuits, that that joy of forfeiting our life and will to Him begins to invade our souls, bursting through ourselves to reflect the greatest love story.
“I am He Whom thou seekest”
Francis Thompson – The Hound of Heaven
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