What I Mean When I Call Myself a Godchaser

People sometimes ask me why I call myself a Godchaser. They expect a marketing answer. I don't have one. I have a Bible answer, and I have a life answer, and they're the same answer.

The word is not about being intense, or being a "personality." I've met quiet, slow, steady saints who chase God harder than the loudest preacher on the internet. The chase isn't a temperament. It's a posture. It's where your face is turned when nobody is watching. It's what you reach for when you're tired. It's whose voice you actually trust when the room is silent.

I want to spend this post telling you what I mean by the word. Because if you're going to walk with me through this site, this podcast, and the book I've been writing, you should know exactly what kind of road we're on.

The Picture Scripture Gave Me

The first time I read Psalm 42 and actually slowed down, the image undid me. It's not poetic decoration. It's a description of a creature in survival mode.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.

A deer doesn't pant for water as a hobby. A deer pants because, without water, the deer dies. The psalmist is telling us something about how the soul was built. You were made for God the way lungs were made for air. You can hold your breath for a while. You can distract yourself with whatever the world is selling this season. But eventually the soul comes up gasping.

David says it again from a literal wilderness.

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

I love that he's not in a sanctuary when he writes that. He's in the desert. He's hunted. He's exhausted. And he's still saying, I seek you earnestly. That's the posture I want. Not "I'll seek you when life gives me space." Earnestly. From the dry place. With my whole being.

That's what I mean by Godchaser. A person whose soul refuses to settle for less than the Living God.

It's Not Earning. It's Response.

I have to say this clearly, because the word "chase" makes people nervous, and it should. If you grew up under the heavy hand of religious performance, the word "chase" sounds like a treadmill. Run faster. Try harder. Maybe you'll be enough.

That is not what I mean. That has never been what I mean.

The cross already happened. The blood was already spilled. The grave is already empty. You cannot chase your way into being loved by God, because you are already loved by God. Romans 5:8 settled that before you got out of bed today. He demonstrated His love while we were still sinners. Past tense. Done.

So why chase?

Because love responds. Because Paul, who knew grace better than almost anyone, did not coast.

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul is not chasing acceptance. Paul is accepted, and from that acceptance he strains forward like a runner with a finish line in view. The chase is not the cause of God's love. The chase is the natural movement of a heart that has been touched by it.

I had to learn that the hard way. There was a season when I was working very hard for a God who was already pleased with me through Christ. I'll tell more of that story another day. But once that broke open, my running didn't stop. It changed. It got freer. It got faster. And it stopped being about me.

The Opposite of Passivity

Here is what I think the church in our generation actually struggles with. It is not too many wild fanatics burning themselves out. It is too many baptized people coasting.

We have made it acceptable to be a Sunday Christian, a podcast Christian, a vibes Christian. We treat the faith like a streaming service we subscribe to. We dip in when we feel like it. We tune out when it gets uncomfortable. And we wonder why our inner lives feel so thin.

God hasn't changed His invitation. He still says the same thing He said through Jeremiah.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

All your heart. Not a slice. Not a Tuesday. Not when the worship music hits right. All of it. Jesus said the same thing in different words — seek first the kingdom. Knock and the door opens. Ask and you receive. The verbs are active. The promises are real. But they answer to a heart that is actually moving toward Him.

A Godchaser is the opposite of passive. Not loud. Not performative. Just moving. Awake. Engaged. Saying yes when He whispers. Saying no when the flesh shouts.

Running with the Cloud Around Us

One more picture, because Scripture won't let me leave this without it.

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

You are not the first person to run this race. You are not even the first person in your family, or your city, or your century. There is a cloud of witnesses. There are believers from every age, in every nation, who fixed their eyes on Jesus and finished. Some of them suffered things you and I will never face. Most of them are unnamed. All of them ran.

When I call myself a Godchaser, I'm trying to take my place in that line. Not as a hero. As a follower. Behind a long, long line of ordinary people who decided that knowing Christ was worth more than everything they had to lay down to get there.

I want to be that kind of believer. I want my kids to know me as that kind of man. I want, when the day comes, to fall over the finish line empty, not because I earned anything, but because I poured out everything I had been given.

Why the Book Exists

The book I've been writing is the long version of this single idea. Not a how-to. Not a system. Just a long, honest walk through what it looks like to live as someone whose soul is awake again. I wrote it because I needed it. I wrote it because I kept meeting believers who loved Jesus but felt stuck, sleepy, or stalled — and they didn't need another program. They needed a reawakening of desire.

If that's you, you are exactly the reader I had in mind. We'll get to the book in time. For now, just know — this site, this podcast, every word I write here — it's all an invitation back to the same thing. Stop coasting. Start chasing. Not for love. Because of love.

The deer is still panting. The streams are still flowing. He is still findable by those who seek Him with all their heart. The road is open. The cloud is watching. The Pioneer of our faith is at the front, already finished, already calling us forward.

I'm just one more set of footsteps on that road. I'd be honored if you'd run a stretch of it with me.

May the God who made your soul to long for Him keep your eyes lifted and your feet moving until you see His face.

Soso lobi.