Goodness

I looked out of my 2nd floor college apartment window and saw that my date was right on time, sitting in his car, ready to take me somewhere nice. I walked out of the door and noticed that the closer I got to the parking lot the closer his car got to the exit. I kept trying to explain to myself that maybe he is trying to move closer to the walkway, but that was completely ruled out when I saw him officially drive out of the lot and turn onto the street!! I was utterly confused. I walked faster and faster until before I realized it, I too was on the street—literally running behind his car!! Perhaps my goal was to have him see me in the rearview mirror and suddenly realize I was his date and I was not yet in the car.

Eventually the car stopped. I caught up to it. He got out and he asked, “Why are you running behind my car?” to which I replied, “why are you leaving me?!!”

He said, “Christy, I was not leaving, I was pulling out of that tight parking lot, to turn the car around so that when you were ready we could just head out in that direction.”

To which I replied, “Oh…my bad… I thought you were leaving me!”

He went on to say, “Christy, if you thought that I, your date, was leaving you, why were you still running behind the car? You are too good for that! If you have to chase your date, you need a new date.”

Wow!

Right?

Well, I married that guy and here I am many years later realizing that my response that evening was such a snapshot of how I handled so many situations in life. While I never again found myself literally running after a car, I still had these feelings of inadequacy and inferiority running through my mind. I often had this idea that someone or something was misunderstanding me or “leaving me” and I had to make it right!

I’m not sure what you think is worth running after, catching up with, and explaining yourself to. Maybe you don’t believe you are good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, thin enough, or fast enough to catch up with all those people, dreams, goals, and aspirations you see pulling off and leaving you.

Know this: No matter who you are, what you have done, or what has been done to you, David said, “SURELY, goodness and mercy shall follow [YOU]!” (Psalm 23:6). Yes, the Bible says that His goodness and His mercy will follow you! It will chase after you!

Not the other way around.

If having him means you have to run after him, that’s not goodness. If being accepted means you have to constantly prove yourself, that’s not mercy.

If you have to chase your “goodness,” you need a new source of “goodness.”

Try His.

His will follow you all the days of your life.