After God’s Heart

What does it mean that David was a man after God's own heart? We hear him described this way time and time again in Scripture.

When David chooses righteousness and stands apart in the midst of sin, we see this heart played out. 

And David is still called a man after God's heart when great sins are exposed in him, showing us the power of repentance and realignment with the Lord.

Recently this phrase struck me in a new way, however. I've always seen it as alignment with God's heart or a model of God's heart, but what if it means that David is someone who chased after God's heart?

He was after God's heart. Throughout his life, he pursued God's heart. When he was convicted, he had godly grief because he wanted God's heart. He repented because he had stopped looking for God's heart and had lived out of the flesh, and he wanted to fix his eyes afresh on the Lord, his salvation.

All these years I've heard "after God's heart" in the same way, but as it struck me for the first time in terms of pursuit, it reminded me that David's Christlikeness was not born out of his own righteousness but out of his deep desire for God.

That's what drove his life. That's what moved him forward. That's what set his path. And that's how I want to live.

I want to live with a deep desire for God's heart and to run every day after more of Him that it may be said long after I'm gone that my heart was after the heart of my God, and as I pursue Him, may I become more and more like Him, displaying His heart to the generations.

May we live in and leave this life with the legacy of "after God's heart," knowing Him more every step of the way.