The Great Pursuit

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 JOHN 4:7–12

“HOW’D YOUR DAY GO?”

“Fine.”

“Anything important happen?”

“Not really.”

Similar conversations take place every day in SUVs and kitchens all across the country. What many of us don’t realize—particularly those of us who give up too easily—is that we model our heavenly Father’s love for us when we pursue our children. I don’t want my kids to think I tolerate them or endure them. I want them to remember that I pursued them, in part because that’s the nature of the love with which God has loved me. “We love each other because he loved us first” (1 John 4:19 NLT).

While we were yet in our sins, God pursued us (Romans 5:8, 10). He took the initiative; he made the effort: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him” (1 John 4:9 NLT).

Without this notion of initiating love, it’s easy to let parenting slip into what we don’t do: I don’t beat my children, I don’t yell at them, I don’t come home drunk, I don’t swear in front of them, and so forth. But love works by a much more proactive policy. Love is a long hug. Love is taking time to talk. Love seeks the other. Love goes on the offensive. It takes action: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).

This is one of the greatest challenges for me personally. I get so busy. As a family, we have so many practical things to get done—replacing the light bulbs, paying the mortgage, buying milk, getting the oil changed, fixing dinner, doing the laundry. If we’re not careful, these tasks can bury the ultimate purpose behind having a family. And some days I realize, You know, I don’t have a clue what my daughter is feeling as she walks through the hallways of her high school. I couldn’t tell you what my son’s greatest spiritual challenge is right now. I don’t know what Kelsey has been doing in her devotions lately—or even if she’s having them.

It’s a slow drift into a lack of vigilance. There are no signs, no monumental turnings—just a gradual falling away from engagement until I wake up one day and realize I’m out of touch. If I don’t pursue my kids, I’m not truly parenting them—I’m just feeding and housing them. If I’m not counseling them, enjoying them, and praying for them, I’m more of a hall monitor than a father.

How can I pray if I don’t know their biggest fears? Their greatest relational challenges? How they’re doing with God? These issues usually don’t come up unless we go after them. It’s not enough to simply attend sporting events or to know their favorite color or pizza toppings—to fully parent them, we have to break through to the spiritual realities of their everyday lives.

Marriage can be called the great journey, but I think parenting is more accurately called “the great pursuit.” It’s a mission of love, which requires interest, effort, and initiative. It’s the way God loves us, and it’s the way we’re to love our children.

This week, let’s pursue our kids with the same dogged determination God displays in pursuing us.

Heavenly Father, thank you for loving us so much and cherishing us so much that you choose to be a pursuing God. You never grow weary of getting to know us and following after us. Build in us that same attitude, commitment, and mind-set for our children. In Jesus’ name, amen.