The Godchaser.

Prologue — The Chase Begins

There is a sentence in the Psalms I used to read past. I read past it the way you read past most familiar things — eyes moving, heart still.

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

The deer in that verse is not standing politely by the water. The deer is dying. It has run too far. Its lungs are tight and its tongue is dry and it is moving, fast, because it knows the water is the only thing that will keep it alive. The picture is not religious decoration. It is a portrait of what a soul without God actually looks like — and what a soul with God still keeps doing, even after it has found Him.

This is the chase. And this book is for anyone who is tired of pretending they are not in it.

What I am not

Before I tell you what I mean by Godchaser, let me tell you what I am not.

I am not a theologian with a wall of degrees. I have read widely and I have studied carefully, but the authority I carry is not academic. I am a man who met Jesus, who tried to do this on my own for too long, who finally surrendered, and who has been chasing Him ever since. The chase is not about earning. He paid for me on a cross before I knew His name. The chase is about responding — about refusing to coast on a salvation that cost Him everything.

I am not a brand. The Godchaser is a name because we needed a name. It is not a personality. It is a posture. If you came here looking for celebrity Christianity, this is going to disappoint you. There is no platform here that does not get torn down by the next page of Scripture.

I am not the one who saves you. Jesus does that. My job is to point.

What I mean by Godchaser

The word came to me before I had the theology to defend it. I knew, when I said it, that it was true about me — and that the only thing harder than being one was pretending not to be one.

A Godchaser is a person who has decided that drifting will not do. That nominal will not do. That a Christianity of inherited habits and unread Bibles and unanswered prayers will not do. A Godchaser has tasted enough of God to know that more is on the table, and that "more" is not a feeling. It is a Person. The chase is for Him — not for an experience of Him.

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul is the original Godchaser. He says one thing I do. Not seven. Not three. One. He is straining. He is pressing. He has not arrived, and he refuses to act like he has. He is forgetting what is behind — the failures, the successes, the religious resume — and he is leaning into the only thing that matters, which is more of Jesus.

That is the whole posture this book is going to ask of you.

The cross is the start, not the finish

We have to clear up a confusion most of us were raised inside, even if we were raised in church. The confusion is this: that the cross is the finish line of the Christian life. As if Jesus died, you said the prayer, and now your only job is to wait for heaven.

The cross is not the finish line. The cross is the starting line.

It is the thing that makes the chase even possible. Until the cross, the gap between a sinner and a holy God was infinite. After the cross, the gap is closed. You can run now. The veil is torn (Matthew 27:51). The throne is open (Hebrews 4:16). The Father is not hiding. You can run all the way in.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Notice the verbs. Run. Look. There is no mention of waiting. There is no permission to coast. The race is already set. The question is whether you will pick up your feet.

Who this is for

This book is for you if you have ever felt that there must be more to following Jesus than what you are currently experiencing — and you suspect, in the back of your mind, that the gap between what is and what could be is not God's fault.

It is for you if you have read your Bible without your Bible reading you.

It is for you if you have prayed in a way that did not change anything, because what you wanted was a vending machine and not a Father.

It is for you if you have tried to clean yourself up before coming to Him, and you have gotten tired of that lie.

It is for you if you have been religious for years and you are starting to wonder if you have actually met Him.

It is for you if you have never met Him and you are reading anyway, because something in you knows.

You are who this is for.

What the rest of the book will do

The chapters that follow are not abstract. Each one takes one move of the chase and shows you how to make it.

We will talk about Scripture — not how to read it, but how to let it read you. Most of us are still reading the Bible like spectators. The book will not let you do that anymore.

We will talk about prayer — not as a religious tax, but as conversation with the Person who already knows what you were going to say.

We will talk about repentance — the most misunderstood word in the New Testament. It is not shame. It is the turn of the head that lets you see the Father running toward you.

We will talk about obedience — which is the only honest measure of whether you actually believe anything you say you believe.

We will talk about community — because the chase is not a solo. Anyone who tells you it is, is lying to you.

We will talk about the long obedience. The seasons when nothing feels close. The seasons when everything feels close. How to keep running through both.

And we will end where every honest Christian book ends — at the feet of Jesus, with nothing left to offer, which turns out to be the only place He has ever wanted us anyway.

The invitation

You are not going to be the same after you finish this book. I do not say that because I am a good writer. I say it because the Word of God does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). I am going to put as much Scripture in front of you as I can. The Word is what changes people. I am just the one holding the door open.

So if you are tired — chase Him. If you are bored — chase Him. If you are afraid — chase Him. If you are broken — chase Him. If you are far — He has been chasing you longer than you have been alive, and He has not gotten tired.

Welcome to the chase.

Soso lobi.