Chasing After God

Uncategorized 2 Minutes
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Many of us pursue relationships with people that we deem to be of benefit to us. Our human need for love and affirmation means that we avoid loneliness and isolation. We have an innate desire for human contact and relationships. What we grow up desiring to learn is how to cultivate lasting and healthy relationships. At times our negative early childhood experiences, can hinder our ability to form and maintain healthy attachments. The good news is that in the same way that we can learn unhealthy relationship patterns, we can unlearn these behaviours and learn new healthy ways of relating to others.

God created us for relationships and we also have an innate desire for a relationship with a higher being. The crux is what will we use to fill that need for a relationship with a higher power. Either we develop and cultivate a relationship with God, where we allow him to control our lives, or we replace this desire with the love of money or material things. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). God warns us that we cannot seek to serve him and money for example, for money is a master and we are likely to love money and resent God (Matthew 6:24).

It is a relationship with God that will last into eternity and we are advised to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven. We have an eternal reward beyond this life, so we have to live for a treasure that can outlast our earthly existence. We need a hunger for God to cultivate a relationship with him. We know for example, when people are genuine about wanting to be in a relationship with us and we reward this with an audience, when we sense a genuine care for our wellbeing. This has to be balanced against self interest and self seeking motives.

God knows our hearts and what is in our mind and our motives. He can sense either genuine commitment and passion to do his will, or a reluctant submission born out of guilt and shame. What God desires is our hearts, broken with our love for him because we know how much he loves us. A love for him which translates into a hunger and a passion to be close to him and a desire to pursue him into eternity.

“I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:14).

A.P.-Y.

Published by Anneta Pinto-Young

I am a trained Social Worker who currently provides professional leadership on a programme to support Social Work students and Newly Qualified Social Workers entering the Social Work Profession. Born and raised in Jamaica in a Christian family where my father is an ordained Pastor and Deacon who has served for over 50 years in the ministry. My father is also a trained musician and our family can be described as a musical family. I grew up in a small farming community in St. Peter’s, St. Andrew and my parents also have a small farm. I credit my gift of writing to my father who I watched and listened to over the years as he wrote sermons, poems and other recitals in his capacity in ministry. English has always been an easy subject for me and over the years I have developed an increased interest in writing. I am a Trainer, I sing and have a passion for worship, the spoken word and the free flow of the prophetic anointing. I am married to my best friend Andrew Christopher Young who is an advanced Musician and whose music you can find on YouTube and Facebook. I am a trained Coach and Mentor and I love experimenting with food so I love cooking. I enjoy trying cultural dishes from across the world and I view food as an entry into cultures and languages.

Published

18 thoughts on “Chasing After God”

  1. So true that we all have the innate desire that can only be filled with God but many run after futile things hoping that it would satisfy but it never does. May we thirst for God as the deer pants for the water ( psalm 42).

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  2. So true!!! I have learned to spend more intentional time in God’s Word because I want to know Him and the plans He has for me. The balance is a challenge but I am grateful that the Lord is faithful and I know He loves me. Thank you for sharing!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise (Ps 51:17) So often we come to God, seeking his hands and his many material benefits; but after the things of this world have broken us down, then we genuinely seek his face…accepting his judgments and receiving his mercy and his abundant grace!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s