Stalking

Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!

Look to the LORD and his strength and seek his face always.

Psalm 105:3b-4

I get why ancients worshiped the sun. I understand why snowbirds fly south, and sleep is denied to watch the sun rise. I see why.

Because I stalk the sun.

Your see, our brown ranch is enveloped in a hickory forest. Not a grove-a forest. Stray rays sneak in between leaves, though. And I stalk those rays. I stalk the sun.

In summer I pursue these precious streams outside. Stalking sun means I rise, take up my chair and shift with the light. I move often, maybe four times each hour. Each day we spin away and the leaves soak her light and I strive to catch every bright bit of her I can. 

Come winter the rocker migrates to the brightest spot in a dim house. I stalk until I find bright light. Once found, I drag the rocker from living to laundry room where she beams. Then, in her glow I read or fold. Catlike, ensconced-I bask in the warm golden rays. 

I seek and find. Then I realign to catch the sloping rays. It is always worth the effort, the stalking of light. For you see, stalking true light is at once a quest for joy. 

Learning to Seek in the Shade 

Living in the shade teaches me what ceaseless, unrelenting desire to seek looks like. I must seek the light of God’s face with as much-with more- purpose and dogged determination than I exert to get around the limbs and leaves and align my chair with to the sun’s ever-shifting rays. 

I must get around those blocks and go where light can be found. Behind our house is a meadow. I go there and walk on its sunlit paths. I seek sun in back when it’s blocked in front.

I stalk sun and my husband stalks it with me. Like the lame man’s friends, he cut through a ceiling. They cut to get to the Son; he to get to the sun. 


Dogged determination brought a lame man to the Light of the World (Mark 2:6). Dogged determination brought the sun light in. First, a chandelier wired through. Bright eyes followed. Light floods a once dim dining room. 

Seeking One Shining Face

I have set the Lord always before me. Psalm 16:8 

Seeking Christ doesn’t stop at conversion. The stalk has only just begun. Seeking him is the Christian’s life calling. Resisting drift is our work. To believe on Jesus, to fix our gaze on the Lord and seek his face always, that is the work of faith. 

We must believe that fullness of joy is found in His presence. If we do, we seek. We stalk joy. And so the image of Flannery O’Connor becomes the image of Abigail and Jim and Jonathan and Julia: 

Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy-fully armed, too, as it’s a highly dangerous quest (The Habit of Being).

King Jehoshaphat set his face to seek the LORD (2 Chron. 20:3). I don’t know if his teeth were clenched. David cried out, Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD! (Psalm 4:6). Stalking is the natural next thing. 

It’s what David did. It is, I think, what all saints do. Maybe, it’s what make them saints. What makes us saints. I have set the LORD always before me, he wrote in Psalm 16:8. And when we are set to seek his face, we come into his presence. And, in your presence is fullness of joy. 

Drastic Means

Jim trimmed another window. It’s a testimony to his love for me and to my love for light. Last week no sunlight brightened our bathroom. Now it’s aglow with natural light. But access to light meant drastic means; it meant cutting through a wall. 

Endless obstacles block His light. Sin is our biggest Son block. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil (Psalm 34:16).  We’ve got to confess and turn; we must move our chairs and realign. 

Coast through life and you’ll lose sight, too. The dull lull of spiritual drift dims the Son’s light. We must be diligent to set our mind and heart to seek the LORD (1 Chronicles 22:19). 

But God’s grace abounds and bids me come. Come, listen to my Word on your iPhone app while you jog. Come. Come, in the mini-van and hear my Word in a sermon, on a CD. Come. Come, away from Facebook and catalogs and talk to me. Come.

And grace tells me go. Go worship for He inhabits the praise of His people. Go fellowship with one another in my light. Go. Go to life group when the game’s still on and the laundry’s undone. Go. Go walk through autumn leaves and wonder at my world. Go

Come and go. Come away from what blocks the light of God’s shining face, the sin and neglect that stand in the way of joy. Go where His face shines. Go to his Word, to his Church, to Him. Get into his presence where joy is full.

Teeth ground, go.

Stalk joy.