Exploring God

Is exploring God a constant pursuit of a static figure, or does God actually pursue us? Michael Frost talks about what it means to truly explore God. 

Questions for Discussion and Personal Reflection

  1. How have you attempted to explore God in the past?
  2. What do you think of the idea that exploring God is more about "giving up the chase" and staying still?

Well, I think exploring God is about, uh, giving up the chase away from God. Sometimes you can talk about exploring God as though he is static, sitting far off somewhere and you need to be in some quest to explore him or find him. Actually I'm probably more with Frances Thompson who wrote a poem a hundred years ago called "The Hound of Heaven" where he said he felt God was like a hunting dog. He could hear his, his footsteps on the cobblestones behind him. He could feel his breath on the back of his neck. He, he felt that God was much more interested in pursuing him. And in fact, for him to explore God meant to kind of stop running, to, to give up the chase, to turn around and submit. And I'd say the same thing about encouraging people to explore God. It's the God who is in pursuit of you, and to explore him is basically to relent, to abandon yourself. Actually, I think C.S. Lewis described it that way. He said that, uh, coming to God for him was like an unbuckling— is the way he described it. It's like he unbuckled himself and let himself fall into the arms of God. So rather than some static God who invites us to come over, I think God is in pursuit of us. I think that to explore him is to abandon the chase, uh, to, to unbuckle oneself, and to abandon oneself into the loving arms of God.