The Pull You Haven't Named

"...I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness." - Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)

The shore is familiar ground. You could walk it without looking. Yet this calm morning your eyes keep returning to the water, the way a sound you cannot identify keeps turning your head. Nothing is wrong. Still, something about the open water holds your attention, and you couldn't name it if someone asked.

The pull is gentle and easy to dismiss. We call it restlessness, or a mood, or too much quiet. Yet Jeremiah, God's messenger to ancient Israel, spoke to a people God had not finished bringing near. "...I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness" (Jeremiah 31:3). Have you noticed how different being drawn feels from being pushed? The pull does not arrive like a demand. It comes more like a friend drawing you closer before telling you why. Maybe "drawn" is the truest name we have found.

The timing may be what surprises us. We are used to turning toward God when something hurts, and He meets us there. Yet this drawing finds us on ordinary mornings when nothing seems missing. David, a king of ancient Israel who wrote many prayers, knew the pull too: "I cling to you; your right hand upholds me" (Psalm 63:8). The hand he reaches for is already holding him. Perhaps we reach the same way now, not because anything is wrong, but because something has been growing inside us through the years of following Him.

Still, whatever has been growing in us, we want to give it a name. It is hard to live with a feeling we cannot explain. Samuel, a boy who served in Israel's place of worship, heard a voice call his name in the night. Three times he ran to Eli, the old priest, certain Eli had called him. Then Eli realized it was God and told the boy how to answer. "...Speak, for your servant is listening" (1 Samuel 3:10). Samuel could not name the voice, but the voice was already calling him by name. Could the same be true of us? The One drawing us has known our name from the beginning.

So today may ask nothing more than quiet attention to the One drawing us. We don't need to force a name, or turn the pull into a decision yet. "Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you" (Psalm 116:7). Rest, while the question remains open. We may notice our attention returning to God. Perhaps the pull only feels new. It is the nearness of an "everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3), older than every morning we remember. There is yet more.

Prayer

Father, thank You for what following You has given us and for this drawing we cannot yet name. Teach us to hold it gently until You name it. Draw us closer. There is yet more. Amen.