Thabiti Anyabwile posted a great section from Richard Baxter’s Christian Directory regarding our understanding of God’s love. It called to mind this amazing verse from Tolkien:

“As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and steady pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by his divine grace. And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself, divine grace follows after, unwearingly follows ever after, till the soul feels is pressure forcing it to turn to him alone in that never ending pursuit.”

(from The Neuman Press Book of Verse, quoted in To Change The World by James Davison Hunter. Tolkien is here commenting on Francis Thompson’s important mystical poem, “The Hound of Heaven”)