Kethuvim

In a book called Christianity Rediscovered, the author Vincent Donovan talks about experiences he had with the Masai tribe in Africa. He was talking to one of the village elders one day and they started talking about lions. This is how the author recounts the story.

The Masai greatly admire the hunting skills of the lion. So much so, that they use the imagery of a lion hunting its prey as a metaphor for their search for God. The lion picks up the scent of its prey and then commits its total energy to hunt it down and catch it. All its power and agility is used in this pursuit. Once it has caught it, it wraps itself around it and envelops it. This is the way the lion hunts, and this is the way the Masai had traditionally thought they must search for God. The Masai leader then said, "You told us of the High God," he continued, "how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God."

Could it be that this is the reason why the Bible speaks often of God and Jesus as a lion? Is it possible that God pursues us long before we pursue him? The story of the Lost Son lends some credibility to this. When the son returns, the father sees him a long way off and pursues him. He doesn't wait for him to come back and apologize, he runs after him, no questions asked. It seems that the Church would do well to understand this point. That God is seeking after his people and that we need to be letting people know this. We always wait for people to come in our doors and assume that they are the ones seeking God. What would happen if the Church started proclaming the good news that God is seeking his people and is after them as a lion is searching for its prey? What would happen if we proclaimed that there's a searching father who desperately longs to envelop his children in love? What would happen if we got off our butts and pursued people in love as God pursues them, instead of waiting for them to show up at church?