Pursuit

If there is one thing that can keep me up past my bedtime these days it is the Olympic Trials.  I can’t get enough of these athletes, I love hearing their stories and the things many of them have overcome to be where they are.  And I can’t lie, I have total track-runner-butt-envy—those ladies have unbelievable backsides if you ask me.  I have become so emotionally attached to the competitors that my eyes began tearing up when the former gold medalist gymnast fell off the high bars, and I could hardly watch the young lady who fell three times and then could not finish.  And the track runners or swimmers who are literally a finger nail’s distance between going to the Olympics or walking away from their careers, I can’t even handle that, my heart honestly hurts for the ones who fall on the later side of that distance.

I think what captivates me about amazing athletes like the ones at the Olympic Trials is the pursuit.  The relentless, focused, disciplined pursuit of their goal.  An Olympian can’t simply decide one day to work hard enough to achieve that status, they decide with their entire lives and the habits of their days follow suit.  They build a rhythm and a balance around the thing they want the most; rigid enough to make them better each day, but free enough to love the process.  It’s a delicate balance that becomes less delicate with experience… and it’s what I want my pursuit of Jesus to look like, too. 

Those of you who know me are well aware that I am a total jock (let’s not confuse this with “athlete” or “extremely fit,” as those are adjectives which no longer describe me).  I could watch Sportscenter all day and I still set my alarm clock to College GameDay on Fall Saturday mornings.  But I will never be the athletes I love watching so much, because I simply look and admire, cheer and yes, critique.  But I am not out there doing what they are doing, I’m just observing.  And the truth is, it is far too easy for me to do this with my faith.  I can go to church and Bible studies, spend time journaling and listening to sermons, I can even talk about Jesus with my friends, and all the while, if I am really honest with myself… I’m still just observing, I’m not out there living like Jesus actually did.  Without a constant heart check, I could spend the majority of my life as a Christian from the couch, and that is not who I want to be. 

This is not about doing more.  For me, it is about finding that balance between trusting the boundaries that will make me more like Jesus, and living in the grace He offers.  It’s about being done compartmentalizing, done taking God off of my bookshelf when I need something, done building a little kingdom in which I get everything I want.  It’s about the pursuit, about being a woman after God’s own heart.  I don’t want God to find me on the sidelines, watching and admiring the lives of others.  I want Him to find me struggling and messing up and doing really hard things, but with a heart that is so fully and genuinely pursuing Him.  It would be much easier and a whole lot more glamorous to observe, but I want to be in, spending my life like I am only a finger nail’s distance from Heaven.