Stalking

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." (Psalm 23:6)

A while back, my pastor mentioned this verse in a sermon. He said that the original word for "follow" actually means "chase" -- that God's goodness and mercy chases after us, and they will finally find us and grab us if we will just stop running from them. I haven't been able to find the original Hebrew, but it sure got my imagination going. What if God's goodness and mercy are actually stalking us?

Sure enough, I did find this in Nelson's Compact Bible Commentary: "The Hebrew verb follow describes an animal in pursuit. When the Lord is our Shepherd, instead of being stalked by wild beasts we are pursued by the loving care of the Lord."

Reader, welcome to my world.

Growing up as a female in a Mexican culture (even in English-speaking Texas) meant being constantly pursued -- stalked, you could say -- by males. Now, as a chronically single woman, I'm certainly no expert at relationships, but I can tell when a guy likes a girl. All I have to do is remember what it was like to be pursued. (My immensely heartbreaking disappointment of not being pursued by eligible bachelors in a non-Mexican culture is another story.)

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was minding my own business one day while walking near the cafeteria around lunchtime. I was relatively new to my school, and I was still growing out of my awkward early-teenage phase. But out of the corner of my ear, I heard a guy say, "I want to [bleep] her."

Almost immediately afterwards, I was approached by an extremely unattractive guy. He had very bucked teeth and ears that stuck way out of his longish hair. I thought he looked like a mouse. (I'm not making this up.) He announced that his friend wanted to meet me. Really? Someone really wanted to [bleep] the nerdy new girl who wore discount-store clothes, her hair in a ponytail, and big glasses? This was uncharted territory for me.

So, mouse-boy introduced me to his friend -- a stocky, nervous-looking guy who was fairly cute but otherwise creepy. (I mean, you'd probably think so, too, if he announced that he wanted to [bleep] you.) I don't remember if it was at this particular meeting or if it was another time that he delivered a note that he had written to me. In this note, he said that he had his own truck and that he went to church because he thought it was "good for the body." I'm not sure what he meant about that part, but when I announced my newfound boy-adventures to my family, my birth father suggested, "Maybe he means the body of Christ." Eh, I don't know. I think he was just trying to impress me.

Frankly, if he had kept his inappropriate [bleep]ing comments to himself and, especially, if he had pursued me himself instead of recruiting mouse-boy to do it for him -- THEN I might have been impressed.

I turned him down as nicely as I could, but apparently it wasn't nice enough for him. A couple of years later, he saw me in the hallway while he was cruising with his friends and called to me, "Hi, Pierce-ah!" His entourage laughed. Ah, ha, ha.

Fast-forward to the summer after my freshman year in college when I had my first job. I worked at an insurance agency and met at least a dozen new customers every day. One time, one of the customers called me at the office and asked me out to lunch to thank me for helping him buy a policy. This created a bit of a stir in the office, of course. My boss laughed and said that this particular customer was married with five kids and that he was crazy. Well, if you consider adulterous to be "crazy," OK.

I got out of going to lunch with him, but he did return to the office and half-hug me while squishing his bushy sideburns on my cheek. Ick, I'm shuddering just typing this.

I know these are kinda silly examples of being pursued or stalked. (My cats weren't available this evening for photographs.) But as I mentioned earlier, that's how I can tell that a guy likes a girl -- he'll chase after her.

No, this post isn't just about romantic relationships. It's about THE relationship.

"Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near." (Isaiah 55:6)

"When You said, 'Seek My face,' my heart said to You, 'Your face, Lord, I will seek.' " (Psalm 27:8)

"... if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

I don't remember the exact context of the conversation, but I was talking to my birth sister one day years ago about something God-related, and the subject of "seeking the Lord" came up. She became a bit defensive and was like, "Seeking the Lord is a charismatic thing." Well, sorry to throw a wrench in your cessationist ideas, but the truth is all over the Bible, right there in black and white. God likes to be pursued.

I learned / was reminded of this quite recently while I was working through some boiling emotional stuff in my head. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking or what I was silently screaming about, but I prayed. Then God said, "Don't bother Me."

So, of course, I bothered Him.

I'm not completely sure if He was doing a reverse-psychology thing with me, but of course it worked. I don't remember our exact conversation over the next few days, but I was like, "Wait. Was that really You talking?" And He repeated, "Don't bother Me." And I was like, "Am I being prideful? Are You resisting me?" And I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," and I followed Him around like a lovesick puppydog who knows that it's mealtime, and her Master has some kibble with her name on it, but for some reason He just won't give it to her yet.

I'm crazy. Sometimes I have to say something to the effect of, "I don't care if You burn me to a crisp, but I need You to hug me" to communicate how I'm really feeling to the God of the universe, the Consuming Fire who I can't see with my earthly eyes and still live, my Father who adopted me and is probably aching to hug me, too.

At any rate, I came out pretty quickly from whatever type of foggy whatever that was in my head, because God was like, "You passed the test." I think maybe He wanted me to stalk Him. And He showed me how the stress of me always trying to please my birth father (who always looked down on us) contributed to my current issues. God is pretty efficient, especially when He speaks. Sometimes He likes to kill multiple birds with one stone.

And the cool part about God and me stalking each other is that neither one of us will ever need to get a restraining order. Quite the contrary. If I don't chase after Him, and if I don't let Him chase after me, I'll die.

So, Psalm 23:6 says that goodness and mercy will chase after me for as long as I live. Maybe that means that goodness is like a persistent customer who calls me up out of the blue and is like, "Hey, your Father wanted to thank you for letting Him adopt you. How about a roof over your head, food in your fridge, and a movie date on Friday?" Maybe that means that mercy is like a sight for sore eyes who suddenly approaches me and is like, "Hey, your Friend wanted me to tell you that He doesn't want to [bleep] you, no offense. He wants to bless you. He really, really, really, really, really likes you. How about some grace to keep your mouth shut when you want to open it and hurt people, a schedule that miraculously gives you a bit of breathing room to take care of your ailing cat, and some incredibly divine protection while you're zooming down the highway day in, day out?"

Heck yes. I'll take all of that. Thank You.