The Chase

The Chase is shorthand for the pursuit of joy and peace in our lives, what has been called elsewhere, the pursuit of happiness. As it turns out, that chase is unnecessary. God will provide happiness to those who love him and trust in his love for them. Instead, God has for each of us another agenda altogether – a chase of a different sort.
To the world, that is, people who remain estranged from God, life’s aims consists of -

• indulgences to experience moments of joy;
• endeavors to accumulate wealth to acquire the security, availability of pleasure, or esteem it would seem to provide;
• endeavors to accomplish in this life a statement of personal significance or leave a personal legacy, through humanitarian, economic or scientific achievement.
  

People pursue these things, because for them this life is all there is, or even if they believe in an afterlife, it is of marginal concern, or God’s imperatives pertaining to it are parked in a minimally serviced, religious sub-compartment of thinking.

But for the children of God, this present life is a starter life - the opening volume of an eternal epic. With this perspective, the cares of this life become secondary, as we focus on the pursuits of an eternal being, specifically the realization and spread of the Kingdom of God. Consider the following words of Jesus -

Take no thought, saying, “What shall we eat?” or, “What shall we drink?” or, “With what means shall we be clothed?”  For after all these things do the nations seek, and your heavenly Father knows that you have need of them.

But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. [Mt 6:31-33]

Elsewhere, Jesus says –

The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, chokes the word, and it becomes unfruitful. [Mk 4:19]

And pertaining to his coming, just prior to the Day of Wrath –

Pay attention to yourselves, to prevent that at any time your hearts be overcharged with overindulgence, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unexpectedly. [Lk 21:34]

Note how that becoming preoccupied with even legitimate physical needs in life is equated to the vices of greed, gluttony and drunkenness. Like them, it becomes a distraction from the duties of kingdom citizenship.

To that end, this topic explains how God wants us to deal with this life, such that its concerns do not become all-consuming, and how to become kingdom-focused instead.