Chasing His Heart

Welcome, friends. My name is Gray C. Howell. I am honored to have you join me on this journey chasing after the Heart of God. One of my favorite Bible heroes after Jesus, of course, is King David. David is known as a man after God’s own heart. He had such an awe-inspiring faith in the Living God. David experienced different stages in life, from a young shepherd boy to a celebrated war hero to a beloved king. He knew that God would never leave him. God would never forsake him or fail him. God would always forgive him. A truth that remains true for us today.

Real talk? Y’all, David was flawed. He blew it in some mighty big ways (2 Samuel 11 & 12). If you don’t know David’s story, he was anointed God’s chosen one as a young boy and was filled with the Spirit of the Lord (1 Samuel 16:1-13). Meaning that God set David apart to save and protect His people from their enemies and lead them to God. David was a mighty warrior and the greatest king to live, but he was also just human, a human man. A man who saw a beautiful young woman bathing from his balcony, instead of looking away, he became filled with lust and desire for her. Bathsheba was married to one of David’s best soldiers, Uriah. Even knowing this, he still committed adultery with her and she became pregnant. David tried to cover that sin by calling Uriah home in hopes he would sleep with his wife so the baby could be passed off as his. Unfortunately for David, Uriah had more honor than he did and refused to be intimate with his wife. David was in a pickle and desperate to hide this sin. So he had Uriah strategically placed in the thickness of battle and left to be killed by the enemy. It worked. Uriah died in battle, Bathsheba mourned him, David took her as his wife, and she bore his son. David thought he had pulled a fast one, and no one was the wiser. Except he forgot one major detail, there’s no hiding your sin from God. David was confronted by the prophet Nathan and repented (Psalms 51), but still lost the child born from his sin to death as a consequence of that sin.

Despite his epic failure, David is still known as a man after God’s own heart. I don’t know about you friends, but this is so encouraging to me. David wasn’t defined by his sins. He is remembered as the greatest king of Israel, the branch from whom Jesus came from. Even after messing up, God still used his lineage for the Messiah and established his throne forever. This is why David is my hero. I can relate to him, can you? The deepest desire of his heart was God. He chased after God, placing his life in God’s mercy, trusting God to be his salvation even when he failed, especially when he failed.

David’s life with all its ups and downs could have sent him spiraling away from God. To be honest, I have allowed myself to get caught up in that spiral over the trials and valleys I’ve faced over my lifetime. It’s easy to be high up on that mountain top with God, but when I am looking up from the bottom of the lowest pit, it’s harder to open my heart to find Him. But David knew there was no place he could find himself that his God wasn’t there with him. This is true for us as well. We only need an unwavering faith like David’s that focuses on God and who He is. We need to run to God and let Him be our strength, our shield, our fortress, rock, redeemer, salvation…Mighty God.

This is where Chasing His Heart began to form in my spirit. We can spend our entire lives chasing fame, fortune and all the shiny things that will not last. All the while forsaking the only thing that is eternal, our God. I have wasted plenty of years chasing after the wrong things and only reaped emptiness and pain. Knowing the whole time, He was calling me out to start chasing His Heart, to trust and obey Him with all my heart, mind and soul, and allow His Spirit to guide me wherever He leads. God has been calling me to start this journey and invite you along for quite a while now. I admit I have dragged my feet, not feeling qualified or worthy for this calling. On my own, I am neither, but God doesn’t always call the qualified, does He? No, He qualifies the called, and He calls me worthy because of the Blood of Jesus that covers me. Who am I to continue to argue with Him?

My prayer, as we embark on this journey chasing His Heart, is that this will be a place to find encouragement, acceptance and the love of the Lord. A community that can share life’s ups and downs, lift each other up in prayer, and celebrate the joy of being a child of the King. All I ask is for grace as I step out in faith to do the will of Our Father and work toward building a safe space to gather in His Presence.