The God who Allures Us.

I read a story the other day. It was about a man who was given the chance to avoid his death sentence by finding the answer to a very complicated riddle: what is the one thing that every woman wants in a relationship. This made me think, what is the one thing every woman wants in a relationship? I don’t know if there’s a singular answer to this question, but I do have an idea of what at least most girls want.Every girl has this desire to be pursued by someone. I love rom-coms, but I will readily admit that they can be extremely repetitive. One of my favorite elements of their predictable plots is that moment where the girl runs from her lover for whatever reason- the relationship is too unrealistic, or maybe she’s frustrated with her love interest- and she gets on a plane to go halfway across the world or hales the nearest taxi driver to cross the city. The girl is seemingly done. She’s running away from her lover, and just when the viewer is supposed to suspect that the relationship might end (but it’s a rom com so everything has to work out), her guy goes after her. He sprints behind the taxi or takes the next flight possible across the world. He drops everything to pursue her, because he realizes she is worth it, and he doesn’t want to lose her. I’ve always loved that idea that someone could love you enough to drop everything and come get you. Fight for you.Imagine what that would be like- to be unconditionally loved and chased after. The beautiful reality is that we have that. Every moment of our lives, we are being sought after. We run again and again, after things that we deem more worthy than the Lover of our souls. We run sometimes, because we are scared. We run because we feel like finding our worth in other things will give us satisfaction. We leave the Lord again and again because we believe he is not enough for us. Still, though, he comes back for us. 2,000 years ago, he chased us with every crimson tear streaming down his face. He chased us with every staggering blow he endured at the calloused hands of soldiers. He chased us with each staggering step towards the hill he would die on. We were his hill worth dying on. The Lord spoke to the prophet Hosea and told him to marry a girl who was know for sleeping around. Hosea’s marriage to her was to represent the Lord’s covenant relationship with Israel. Hosea wasn’t just told to marry her, but to love her. When she caused Hosea heartbreak by being unfaithful to him, it was representative of Israel breaking the Lord’s commandments and turning to other gods for satisfaction. Even though Hosea’s wife cheated on him continually and was bought by another man, the Lord told Hosea to buy her back. This is representative of the Lord’s desire to pursue His people, Israel, even after all they did to break his heart. In Hosea 2:14-15 the Lord says, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.” He loves his people passionately and enough to allure us, to bring us back into a close relationship with Him. We mess up again and again, and there is absolutely no way to hide it from him. We are laid bare before him- selfishness, pride, bitterness- all our ugliness. He pursues us in spite of it all. We are never too messy for his love. He will always come after us, even when we run as far as we can.words by Savannah Cooper and photo by Corrie MahrSaveSave