Chasing, or Being Chased?

Today the Clemson University Tigers opened the 2010 season with a win. Each game I see, whether on TV or live, I always replay the same things in my mind: Saturdays as a toddler sitting in section GG (the Hill) when my dad was a student there, the approximate location of the prefab house we lived in (now the site of one of the gates to Litteljohn Coliseum) and watching jets fly high overhead and breaking the sound barrier. I also remember going to a Tigerama rally (the pep rally, I think before the game against the Tiger's state rival, the University of South Carolina Gamecocks), the picture of the tiger that hung in the Clemson House (I think), the duplex we lived in for awhile, the grey baseball outfit I had, and eating sliced cheese.

This morning, as I woke up, I told Cynth that I felt I was running from this thing that is chasing me, and I don't know whether I am far ahead or that it is catching up to me. Not that this thought was completely new, or that it is a consuming thought. It is neither new nor pervasive. Nor is it persuasive. It cannot be, because every thought is given over to the Lord of my life for he is using all this to work in my life and many around me.

I was not ever a fast runner, but I did try, once going out for track in Junior High or High School, I can't remember which. Regardless, I don't recall it lasting very long, since it seems that, looking back on it now,I apparently chasing something, or I was being chased.

This is also a common theme in humanity, another indication of the deep longing that we try to fill with things other than the completely sufficient for all our longing - God alone. Many songs (Running Away - Pablo Cruise; The Piña Colada Song (Escape) - Rupert Holmes; Chasing the Dream - Little River Band, Run to You - Brian Adams) talk about our life in the chase.  And all along, God is pursuing us - God the Creator, self-sufficient, not needing anything, even from the likes of us - chases us down for no other reason than that he loves us.

And why does he chase us, but to cause us to return to him.  To repent of our unfaithfulness, and believe on him, to fill our lives with him and to live in him.  All the while enjoying in this life the assurance of adoption as his child, eternal life as a guarantee, and the indwelling of the Spirit, despite our continued struggle in sin and our difficulties in the brokenness that still is this world.

Chasing, or being chased?  At the moment, just a thought, a passing metaphor for what it feels like to be me at the moment.  I am not concerned with whether I am outrunning this disease or almost caught in its clutches, because I know who runs with me, and he promises to never leave me.  So whether or not I am really being chased, all I shall do is run this race set before me.  And this race is a marathon, not a sprint, so I will trust that he will guide and help me to persevere, to endure all that I face, by his grace and provision.  Along this race I will doubtless have distractions, more difficulties and trials.  God is everything to me, and is sufficient to see me through.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."  Hebrews 12:1

Good night and God bless all of you for your encouragement and prayers for me, Cynth and our family.