The Chase

I was scrolling through my Facebook friends statuses the other day when I came across one that caught my attention. It said something to the effect that this friend is addicted to shopping for the perfect black purse.  I am not proud to say my first thought was “Me Too!”

I love looking at purses of any color and am always in search of what I think is the “perfect” bag. You know the one that is just the perfect size, has just the perfect amount of pockets and has a perfect design. Oh I find them alright AND purchase them and am shortly thereafter disillusioned by its seeming perfection.

 But the thought of a perfect purse actually existing keeps me forever chasing after it.  I am being a little bit facetious here but sadly enough it holds some truth in my life. I chase after other things as well, some equally as mundane like clean floors ( I have 3 dogs) and even writing the perfect blog to name a few.

Sometimes we have loftier things we chase after such as the perfect job, the perfect house or the perfect ministry.

 Sadly, we spend precious years of our lives in pursuit of “the thing” that we think will bring us perfect satisfaction. We put a high priority on chasing after higher degrees of education; we put in longer and longer hours at the office to climb the corporate ladder. We spend more money on bigger and better homes and cars AND the right purse.

Some of our efforts bring a degree of satisfaction for a time but like my handbags eventually we end up feeling disillusioned and even empty so we try harder and keep chasing.

Most of the time our chasing after produces minor distractions but sometimes, like a child running after a runaway ball, the chase can be dangerous. The chase can overtake us so we are like addicts chasing our next fix.

Eugene H. Peterson says in his introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes in The Message Bible “Everything we try is so promising at first! But nothing ever seems to amount to very much. We intensify our efforts- but the harder we work at it, the less we get out of it. Some people give up early and settle for a humdrum life. Others never seem to learn, and so flail away through a lifetime becoming less and less human by the year, until by the time they die there is hardly enough humanity left to compose a corpse.”

The pursuit of things, relationships, careers can unfortunately become more important than who we are and effect our relationship with God.

Solomon the wisest man in the world wrote about this topic in Ecclesiastes. saying

“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 3:10-11

 Although I spend some of my time chasing after things of this world and even chasing after ways that I can serve those in need, I have learned that the most important chase in my life is my chasing after God. HE is the only thing that will always satisfy. “My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. Psalm 63:55

When we chase after God Himself, not what He can do for us we chase after the only true thing that can satisfy. Chasing after God is the only pursuit in this life that is not meaningless, it is why we were created.  Oswald Chambers says in My Utmost for His Highest that “The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God.”

We can not let the busyness of ministry, the perfect bible study or the perfect purse obscure us from the perfect chase after God. What are you chasing after?

Running Full Speed After God,

ruthann