DOVE’S EYES🥹

This morning, a friend of mine “blasted” me. Not even small. He was like, “You don’t check up on me,” and I laughed at first because in my head I’m thinking, how? Me? I check up. I’m that person. I even tried to argue it. I was ready to defend myself properly. But he didn’t even argue back; he just said, “Go and check our chats.” So I did.

As I started scrolling, he was right. Almost every day, it was him sending “good morning.” He checked in. He started the conversation. And I kept scrolling, thinking, “Okay, maybe I’ll see mine somewhere in between. It can’t be that bad.” Well, it was that bad, lol. Day after day, it just kept going. I finally saw the last time I actually checked up on him first. Sometime in the first week of April. Since then, it was him doing all the “maintenance.”

And the thing is, I wasn’t ignoring him. I was replying. I was engaging. I was present in the conversations. So in my mind, everything was fine. I even thought we were both putting in effort. But the truth was, he was the one carrying it (Sorry, my love, lol.) I sat down to write this blog post, and this story I just told came to mind again because somehow, I see the parallel.  See er, you can think you are showing up, but when you actually check, you realise you’ve just been responding, not initiating. 

It’s very easy to be like that with God. You’re praying. You’re fasting. You’re doing all the right things. So in your mind, you’re good. But if you really “check the chats,” you might realise that a lot of times, you’re responding to Him, not really pursuing Him. It’s not as though when he reaches out you don’t respond o, you do, but sometimes it’s even surface. Sometimes routine. To tick off a box. Nothing deep enough to show real desire.

And that’s where my original idea for this blog post comes to play.... Rev. Dr. George Wilfred Arthur said “when He (God) withdraws, sometimes it’s intentional because the pursuer longs to be pursued too. God wants to be pursued.” It makes so much sense! 

My friend didn’t “blast” me because he was angry for no reason. He just wanted to feel pursued, too. He wanted to see that I also think about him without him having to start it every time. And it’s the same thing. God is our beloved. Of course, He doesn’t get tired. It’s not like He’s exhausted from loving us. But He still desires something real from us. Not just a response. Not just routine.

HE WANTS OUR UNDISTRACTED DEVOTION!

Reminds me of these lyrics from Tasha Cobbs, which I sang so passionately in 2018 but which now make all the more sense… “I don't want to talk about you like you're not in the room. I want to look right at you, I want to sing right to you. Give me Dove’s eyes. Give me undistracted devotion only for you….”

It’s very possible to think you’re doing well… when in reality, you’re just maintaining. This reality check showed me how easy it is to assume effort without actually giving it. And now I’m thinking… if I had to “scroll” through my relationship with God, what would I see? If you had to scroll through your relationship with God, what would you see?

Would it be mutual? Or would it mostly be Him reaching… and us responding? And maybe that’s why sometimes it feels like we can't feel him. It’s not that he has left. He just steps back a little to see if we will come after Him too.

And from now on, I will, because I actually want Him. Because at the end of the day, He is not just God to be known. He is my (your) beloved, and beloveds are meant to be pursued, TOO.