He Goes Before Me
The ways the Sacred Heart of Jesus pursues the soul
It was July 2008—a beautiful summer day in northern Michigan. I was camping with a new friend who had recently introduced me to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I was not yet a practicing Christian and only beginning to seek Him and open my heart to the truth. It was this weekend that the Sacred Heart began appearing everywhere.
One afternoon of the camping trip, I was driving us around the Leelanau Peninsula and realized I was lost. After wandering a long way down a winding road, I decided it was prudent to stop when possible and turn around. I pulled into a dirt driveway and was met by a large statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus staring right at me. He’s following me, I thought.
And it seems that He was, and continued to draw me to His Heart after that weekend, always tailoring His pursuit to the disposition of my own heart.
When I was living a life apart from God He often pursued me by appealing to my conscience. There were a couple of years when I ran away from Him with all of my might. On those Sunday mornings, I would feel depressed and unable to ignore the oppressive sadness. I wanted so desperately to be at Mass, but I had chosen a life away from Jesus and couldn’t have both. I felt called by Him to close the distance between us and felt an intense longing for Him that left me feeling miserable and alone. After a while down this long winding road away from God, I had to accept that I was lost, headed the wrong direction, and needed to turn around.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus changed His pursuit once I turned to Him with my whole heart. Obstacles to my progress were removed, I was encouraged and felt His nearness. Every book I read set my heart on fire with love for Him. Time in adoration filled me with hope and increased my faith. I was strengthened to fight against my sinful habits. He left me signs of His providence all around me, and a day never went by when I didn’t feel He was guiding my steps with intention as my heart was being converted.
Over time, this more dramatic evidence of His pursuit faded. As my faith matured, I didn’t often feel God strongly pricking my conscience nor consoling me with grand consolations. His pursuit became quieter—not because He loved me less, but because He was teaching me to love Him more. The burden of pursuit now rested on my heart, to pursue the one Who is always calling me to Himself.
For many years, living life as a faithful Catholic, I had a nagging feeling that I needed to be praying more. I was going to Mass, praying with my family, and checking all of the boxes of liturgical and vocal prayer. But I wasn’t taking time daily to be silent with Him, to bring all of myself to Him and learn to love Him and be loved. During this time, God permitted long periods of spiritual desolation. What I initially perceived as abandonment was revealed to be His call away from spiritual complacency. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was pursuing me in a new way, allowing this spiritual unrest to draw my attention to my need for deeper intimacy with Him.
So often I would see difficulties and desolations in life as signs of God’s distance, when the reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. I was spiritually discouraged and overwhelmed, and I tried to ignore it with distractions or explain it away with excuses for my laxity.
Instead, I needed to begin making small, concrete steps toward intimacy with the One who allows all trials, and desires to transform them for my good. I began to seek His Heart with fidelity to mental prayer—showing up to spend time with Him even when I felt nothing, and even when He was not drawing me with consolation.
It is here—when we begin to pursue the Pursuer in desolation as well as in consolation—that love becomes something steady and abiding rather than something merely felt.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus reveals to us a God Who desires us with such intensity that He took on a human heart to show us. He pursues us in our sin, throughout our conversion, and calls us ever deeper into sacrificial love and communion with Him. Our God meets us where we are and calls us to take the next step deeper into His love. His pursuit is always anticipating our response.
When I finally paused on that winding road and turned around, there was the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I realize now that He was not following me at all—He was going before me. He loved me before I knew Him, guided me through my conversion, and continues to call me into places in His Heart I have not yet discovered.
This is glorious, thank you, and the perfect nourishment just when I needed it. Have you read Till We Have Faces by Lewis? You would love it. It is all about the ways of God with the soul, His ineffably loving "going before" as He guides the soul to Himself even and especially while she is in the dark.