Follow the Trail
As long as there has been God, there have been God chasers. History is filled with their stories. Stories of this type can be read as road maps to the Holy of Holies, or to places of access to the heavenly. God chasers transcend time and culture. They come from every background imaginable. They come from every era of time that has existed...from Abraham the wandering herdsman, to Moses the adopted stutterer, to David the shepherd boy. As the parade of time continues, the names keep popping up: Madame Jeanne Guyon, Evan Roberts, William Seymour of Azusa Street fame—until we reach today. Really, only history can tell us the names of God chasers, but they’re there. Are you one? God is just waiting to be caught by someone whose hunger exceeds his grasp.
God chasers have a lot in common. Primarily, they are not interested in camping out on some dusty truth known to everyone. They are after the fresh presence of the Almighty. Sometimes their pursuit raises the eyebrows of the existing church, but usually they lead the church from a place of dryness back into the place of His presence. If you’re a God chaser, you won’t be happy to simply follow God’s tracks. You will follow them until you apprehend His presence.The difference between the truth of God and revelation is very simple. Truth is where God’s been. Revelation is where God is. Truth is God’s tracks. It’s His trail, His path, but it leads to what? It leads to Him. Perhaps the masses of people are happy to know where God’s been, but true God chasers are not content just to study God’s trail, His truths; they want to know Him. They want to know where He is and what He’s doing right now.
Sadly, today the bulk of the Church is like some proverbial detective holding a magnifying glass in his hand and studying where God has been. Of course, a hunter can determine a lot by studying the tracks of an animal. He can determine which direction it’s going, how long it has been since it passed there, how much it weighs, whether it is male or female, and so on. Unfortunately, the Church today spends countless hours and much energy debating where God has been, how heavy He was when He was there, and even His gender. To true God chasers, all these things are immaterial. They want to run hard and hot on this trail of truth until they arrive at the point of revelation, where He presently exists. A God chaser may be excited about some dusty truth, and may even be thrilled somewhat over determining the weight of the kabod, or glory, that passed in the path, and how long ago it was. But that’s just the problem. How long ago was it? A true God chaser is not happy with just past truth; he must have present truth. God chasers don’t want to just study from the moldy pages of what God has done; they’re anxious to see what God is doing.
There is a vast difference between present truth and past truth. I’m afraid that most of what the Church has studied is past truth, and very little of what we know is present truth.If you want to recognize a real God chaser, think of a whooping, barking, tail-pounding dog trembling with excitement. Just give God chasers the scent that God is nearby and see what happens. As the Bible says, the scent of water causes many things to happen. Like bloodhounds on a trail, they’ll get most excited when they reach their prey. In this instance, their prey is His presence.All I can say is, I’m a God chaser. And so are a lot of those who have had God encounters. Why don’t you come join the company of God chasers? We just want to be with Him.
