I’ve heard the expression ‘the Hound of Heaven’ for many years but wasn’t sure where it originated. So today I went looking and found the poem by Francis Thompson and then read the first chapter of John Stott’s Why I Am, in which Stott explains:
Francis Thompson was expressing what is true of every Christian; it has certainly been true in my life. If we love Christ, it is because he loved us first (1 John 4:19). If we are Christians at all, it is not because we have decided for Christ, but because Christ has decided for us. It is because of the pursuit of “this tremendous lover.”
But all this resulted from a rabbit trail. I was reading in Isaiah about two months ago. Then I decided I needed a break from gruesome prophecies for a while. I needed a dose of hope. Of course, Isaiah also offers some of my favorite hope-filled passages in Scripture, but I hadn’t gotten to those yet in my readings.
Anyway, after reading Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther along with their accompanying prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, I wandered back to Isaiah yesterday, reading Chapters 30-33.
As I was fixing breakfast this morning, Paul asked me about Jesus cursing the fig tree in Matthew 21: 18-21. We had a long discussion about this and what Jesus meant by ‘if you have faith enough and do not doubt’ you can do the same thing as he did to the fig tree (i.e. make it wither) and much greater things. Good food for thought.
Then Paul left, and I sat down with my breakfast and my Bible and turned to Isaiah 34 to begin reading. First I decided to get out my commentary on Isaiah to read about a few troubling verses in Chapter 30—troubling and hopeful—so it took a little while until I finally began to read Chapter 34.
And then I stopped.
I only got to verse 4 before I had that feeling, Lord. The feeling that You, the Hound of Heaven, were after me. Here’s verse 4: “All the stars in the sky will dissolve. The sky will roll up like a scroll and its stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine and foliage on the fig tree.”
And it made me almost gasp. The fig tree. Withered leaves. The very words Paul had read me a few minutes earlier. Yes, a different context, and yet…
In the poem The Hound of Heaven, the poet is being pursued against his will. But for me, I love how You pursued me as a child and have continued to ‘hound’ me throughout my life, like a sheepdog. It’s not that I need convincing of who You are for salvation. I’ve got that. But time and again, You remind me that You are right beside me, closer than breath, aware of my every move, of my morning conversation with Paul about fig trees.
Did You inspire him to read that chapter in Matthew and mention it to me so that I’d be encouraged when I read this chapter in Isaiah? Or vice versa? Or was it back two months ago when I stopped reading Isaiah for a while. Did your Spirit whisper ‘wait’ to my spirit so that today I’d be in this chapter when Paul was in that chapter?
It can get very complex, can’t it, Lord?
But this is what I see. What I mean. What I want to say: Thank You, precious Hound of Heaven! Thank You for Your relentless pursuit of Your kids. Even after we’ve relented and repented and run to You for decades, You still keep reminding us that You are right here, watching, caring, pursuing.
Last week it was with fasting and prayer. The way You brought up the idea in three or four unrelated ways, culminating in our pastor announcing a week of fasting and prayer.
And today, it’s the fig tree.
As an added wink from You, our own little fig trees are right now producing many, many figs, and we’ll serve some tonight, warmed in the broiler with goat cheese on top.
You are a God of endless detail, and a mind that blows my mind. You know everything about every one of us. And yet, even knowing all the details, good and bad, You love, You pursue, You hound us until we allow ourselves to be caught, like a sheep cornered and rescued by the sheepdog, not to be devoured, but to be returned to the flock, unharmed.
How has the Hound of Heaven pursued you? How are you aware of His intimate involvement in your life?
Elizabeth Musser 
So timely for me to read this. Waiting between chemo and radiation treatments, procrastinating tending to those papers scattered on the table: bills, commitments, things that my mind struggles to think about right now. It is a relief to read “like a sheep cornered and rescued by the sheepdog, not to be devoured, but to be returned to the flock, unharmed.” Thank You Elizabeth for writing down your thoughts and sharing them.
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