Barnhouse Quote

We've recently begun a preaching series through the Minor Prophets. Of course, James M. Boice's expositional commentaries are staples of this diet. Commenting on Hosea 2.2-23, Boice quotes Donald Grey Barnhouse. This is the most powerful extrabiblical paragraph I can remember ever reading. I couldn't resist including it in a sermon, and I cannot resist providing it here:

The pursuing love of God is the greatest wonder of the spiritual universe. We leave God in the heat of our own self-desire and run from His will because we want so much to have our own way. We get to a crossroads and look back in pride, thinking that we have outdistanced Him. Just as we are about to congratulate ourselves on our achievement of self-enthronement, we feel a touch on our arm and turn in that direction to find Him there. 'My child,' He says in great tenderness, 'I love you; and when I saw you running away from all that is good, I pursued you through a shortcut that loves knows well, and awaited you here at the crossroads.' We have torn ourselves free from His grasp and rushed off again, we are sure, this time, that we have succeeded in escaping from Him. But, once more, the touch of love is on our other sleeve and when we turn quickly we find that He is there, pleading with the eyes of love, and showing Himself once more to be the tender and faithful One, loving to the end. He will always say, 'My child, my name and nature are Love, and I must act according to that which I am. So it is that I have pursued you, to tell you that when you are tired of your running and your wandering, I will be there to draw you to myself once more.' (quoted in James Montgomery Boice, The Minor Prophets, vol 1, p25).