My husband, Zac, always says, “Changed lives, change lives.” If you are not first aware of your own need for life change, the women around you won’t see their need. If you allow God into the inner struggles of your heart, the women following you will be much more likely to let Him into theirs. These women do not need to see bright and shiny, perfectly poised people; they need to see people who are a mess and daily dependent on God for their hope and strength.
David was a wild, passionate warrior king, whose own messy story I had heard and whose psalms I had read a thousand times, but when I began to look a bit more closely at the life of this man, something about the way he related to God just wrecked me.
His view of God was so big. David actually believed God was real and he lived like it. He chased after God’s heart (Acts 13:22). And I think as a generation of women, we are longing to do the same. We want to believe God is real and to live like it. We are tired of chasing everything else under the sun. We are tired of chasing wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). We want to chase Him.
Chase is not a study for people who want to play it safe. This study will mess with you, just as it messed with me, because we all are chasing things other than God, and when you look into the life of someone chasing God Himself, God alone, you start craving Him too. I want a life like David’s, brave and dependent and full of worship. He had a relationship with God unlike any other in Scripture and, honestly, unlike any other I’ve ever seen. I want to know God like he did. I want to trust God like he did.
I think many of us are tired and though we would like to please God, it feels like it would take a lot of effort to do that. Chase is an experiment in what it is God truly wants from us. The more I understand what God has done, the more I quit striving and simply rest in Him. David chased God, but part of them meant resting in the work of God, in God’s favor, in the plans God had written for him. Whether you are running from God or working your tail off to please Him, David’s journey will challenge your view of God.
Watch a section of the first session here:
Jennie Allen is an Arkansas native but Texan forever, Bible teacher, author, and the founder and visionary of IF:Gathering. A passionate leader following God’s call on her life to catalyze this generation to live what they believe, Jennie is the author of Restless, Anything, and her most recent book, Nothing to Prove. Her Bible studies include Stuck, Chase, Restless, and Proven. Jennie has a master’s in biblical studies from Dallas Theological Seminary and lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband and teammate, Zac, and their four children, Conner, Kate, Caroline, and Cooper.