2 Chronicles 15

In some ways, I wanted to title this blog God is not a stalker. But, I guess I do believe that God is a stalker—in the sense that He will pursue us, leaving no stone unturned in winning us back to Him. But, if we ultimately want to have nothing to do with Him, He will eventually leave us alone.I love it whenever I see plain talk in Scripture. And today, this is the message about God I found in 2 Chronicles 15: "The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, 'Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.'" (vs 1-2)

So straightforward! First, God reassures us that if we are willing to be in a relationship with Him, He will always be with us. In fact, as Paul wrote in Romans 8, there is nothing on Earth that can separate us from God if we choose Him. He will never leave us. He will never abandon us. He will be with us when we are with Him.

But... if we abandon Him, He will abandon us. At first, this might sound like some sort of threat. Do things My way, or I’ll disown you. On the contrary, God has made it abundantly clear that the only thing He wants is to have a relationship with us. He became flesh and lived among us for that very purpose! He is not the one who does the disowning. We do. God’s statement that He will forsake us if we have forsaken Him is not a threat, but it’s a statement about how highly He values our freedom.

You see, people who really are stalkers don’t like to be ignored. Often, you hear stories of how jilted friends and lovers become absolutely obsessed with the objects of their affection and, unless the relationship is restored (even under threats and duress), the stalker may eventually do harm to the person he is stalking.

But if we decide that we want to walk totally away from God forever, there will be no need for us to get a restraining order. He will acknowledge and accept our decision. Instead of harming us if we reject Him, He will say okay and give up. He allows us to make the choice about whether there will be a relationship or not. Even though He wants a relationship with us more than anything, if we say no, He will respect that.

That is one of the ways that I believe our basic human nature reflects God’s character. We all want to be wanted. We all want to be loved. And so does God. But how many of us want to be loved because we have forced the other person into a relationship? How many of us would like to live out our days knowing that our spouse says "I love you, honey" because they’re afraid of what we’ll do to them if they don’t say those words?

God doesn’t want that kind of "relationship" any more than we do. He wants to be loved because we have chosen to love Him. He wants to be wanted.