Pursued Quotes

“And yet, God is different than the law; God is faithful to us, even when we curse ourselves by rejecting and being unfaithful to His law.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I just couldn’t get it through my thick head that the fuel of acknowledgment and appreciation from others was merely supplementary, that it was no more substantial than the fuel from drugs and partying. It was enough for a thrilling night out and gripping story, but not enough to fill the leaking reservoir of the human heart. Hooking up, being the life of the party, having people hitting you up day and night, being loaded, none of these things were substantial foundations upon which to build an identity, nor could they ever be.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“At some point I would have to realize that my feelings, instincts, wants, and desires were highly unreliable and unpredictable things to base my wellbeing upon. I already knew they were not capable of satisfying, but I kept letting them call the shots. More than that, I let my feelings hijack my life like a teen thug committing grand theft auto. Only I gave them the keys.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I had set the first boundary in my life and made it clear that under no circumstance could it be broken. Storrie knew my rule, yet, without the slightest restraint, he was urging, pleading, and begging me to break it. My heart had always been bigger than my brain, and I could not stand the thought of him out in the cold. The more he whimpered and pried at me, the less I could resist.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I realized, in that moment, that even heroic acts count for nothing when you’re in the business of corruption.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“During the past few weeks, I’d begun to feel that there might actually be an end to the endless cycle of penalties and fees. I’d spent an entire year trying to earn back my freedoms, but I now found myself stumbling through a set of revolving doors that would lead me back to square one all over again. Fines, counseling, court, AA, DT, probation, community service, licensing fees, impound fees, license suspension, countless hours walking and bumming rides back and forth between all these penalties. The weight of this mistake felt like a millstone tied around my neck, dragging me deeper and deeper into that pit of despair called hopelessness, the one from whence I’d come, the one I’d fought so hard to climb out of.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I felt a looming sense of despair, as I had the last time, I’d gotten a DUI. It was a repeat of what had happened before, except this time I didn’t flip them off, cuss them out, and pee on the floor. I was too deflated to quarrel. As I sat there, I realized that this time I wasn’t disappointed or angry with them, but with myself. To my surprise, I found myself telling them that I was sorry and that I wished none of this had ever happened.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“He looked deep into my eyes and then continued, “I’m sorry this is happening to you, but it’s never going to change until you decide that you’re done with this life. As long as you think these things are the ultimate pleasure that life has to offer, you will keep seeking them. As long as you keep seeking them, you’ll feel divided inside; you will also keep breaking the law. I know these consequences suck, but as long as you keep breaking the law, you’ll keep bringing them on yourself. It won’t ever stop until you decide to change. God helped me change my life, maybe He’ll help you too.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Every time I faced a judge, I went in with a sense of impending doom. They always told me, “You’re innocent until proven guilty,” but I knew that was a bunch of rubbish. I wasn’t innocent, period. It didn’t matter what I told myself or how I justified my actions, I wouldn’t be there if I was innocent.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“When I realized that I had experienced a miracle, I couldn’t help but think that the God to whom I had prayed must have orchestrated this whole thing. I demanded that He give me my phone back, and He did so in a way that made it obvious it wasn’t just a coincidence. It led me directly into the clutches of the law. What I wanted led me to what I didn’t want. What I wanted led me to what I hated. Getting my phone led to me getting arrested. I could choose whatever path I wanted, I could demand my own way, but there would be consequences. God wanted me to understand that every decision has consequences.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“And yet even after letting me see where my own path would lead me, God bailed me out of the consequences that I had brought on myself. It seemed even if I chose things that led to bondage and captivity, He would be there to stand on my behalf and offer me a path forward. He removed the incriminating evidence against me and set me free. But what good was it when I couldn’t change, when I just kept demanding my own way and getting myself trapped again and again?”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Looking back, I think the reason I kept chasing quick fixes was because, for the briefest moment, the slight reprieve they offered helped me forget how messed up and broken I was. In my heart of hearts, I felt like the slate of my life was so scribbled and dirty, with so many arrests and broken relationships, that it wasn’t even worth trying to clean up. Since I could not be cleansed, fixed, or cured, I simply learned to cope by covering the messy “whiteboard” of my life with pieces of white paper: a fling with a cute girl
boosted my pride, an epic adventure with friends made me excited and confident; sports made me feel tough, while good grades and a nice job boosted my ego. While each distraction helped me to ignore the mess underneath, I never found anything that could erase it. So, I stacked up the distractions until they grew so numerous, they fluttered everywhere throughout the muddled chaos I called my life.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“Looking back, I think the reason I kept chasing quick fixes was because, for the briefest moment, the slight reprieve they offered helped me forget how messed up and broken I was. In my heart of hearts, I felt like the slate of my life was so scribbled and dirty, with so many arrests and broken relationships, that it wasn’t even worth trying to clean up. Since I could not be cleansed, fixed, or cured, I simply learned to cope by covering the messy “whiteboard” of my life with pieces of white paper: a fling with a cute girl boosted my pride, an epic adventure with friends made me excited and confident; sports made me feel tough, while good grades and a nice job boosted my ego. While each distraction helped me to ignore the mess underneath, I never found anything that could erase it. So, I stacked up the distractions until they grew so numerous, they fluttered everywhere throughout the muddled chaos I called my life.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I was like a train, headed full steam, down an old set of tracks that would eventually drop me into oblivion. Instead of heeding the warning of the conductor, I annihilated him to remove my guilt as I passively and regretfully watched my life go slipping by. I considered anyone who tried to warn me of the dangers ahead to be an enemy: the law, the authorities, the police, my family, the educational institutions, God. I silenced all of them so I could live in the way I pleased.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“In removing the conductor, I presumed that I did not need him, that I could do his job, that any set of whimsically concocted guidelines could replace his expertise. Without the conductor, there was no room for me to feel bad when I failed to meet any superimposed standards. There was also no guidance, no voice to inform me of imminent danger or to save me from it, no one to help me correct my path or understand what was going on around me, and why.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I had no standards, and that meant there was no way I could measure the efficacy of my life. It turned out that meeting a certain set of definitive standards would have been easier than meeting an ever changing list of my own subjective values.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I had been so callous that almost nothing could break through to me. I was like a corpse, and the rebukes I received were like a defibrillator, shocking my heart and forcing it to return to some semblance of normalcy.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I excitedly told her about what had been going on in my life. After about an hour of talking, she looked me dead in the eye and said, “You need to grow up, Mike. Stop boasting about your stupid fights and telling all these stories about how you got arrested. It only makes you look like a criminal. In the real world, people don’t care about that kind of stuff.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“That conversation turned around so quickly that it made me dizzy. I not only realized how immature I was, but also how menial and pathetic my lifestyle and worldview seemed to other people. In my attempts to impress her, I repelled her. I may have been able to impress and attract drug addicts, but those who were successful, I could not. For the first time, I realized that other people from other classes of society or with differing worldviews saw my pursuits and lifestyle through a different lens than I did. What could impress one crowd could disgust another.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I felt so lost in my addiction, I believed that no one was capable of understanding or helping me. I thought I was uniquely broken, so messed up that no other human could possibly get me. Turns out most addicts feel that way. I knew he drank occasionally, but I had no clue how much he drank, how much it meant to him, or how much he was offering by his willingness to forsake it for me. To this day, I wonder what things would have been like if I would’ve opened up to him and let him fight alongside me instead of blocking him out. I can’t count how many times I have wished that I could go back and take him up on that offer.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“As I sat on the floor in the corner of the concrete block, it felt as if the last domino had fallen in my crumbling world. For the first time in a long time, I starting weeping, and I couldn’t stop. The impact of what was happening was steadily sinking in. For the third time in my life, my eyes shot heavenward.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I wept without end until suddenly a comforting feeling washed over me. If I could have heard God speak, I’m sure He would’ve said, “Yes, you fail, your heart is deceived, and it endlessly seeks things that hurt you, lie to you, and tear you from Me, but My heart seeks you. I will never give up on you.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“The whole way up, I shared with a captive audience everything that had happened. I told them about the officer, telling me that my awful record would land me a spot in jail for a long time. Then I told them how everything had changed in a moment. Somehow, in between the time when he first looked up my record and the time that I prayed, suddenly everything that condemned me was non-applicable and void.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I told them how, when I’d finally broken down and handed everything over to Him, something changed, and I felt like a different person. I suddenly had confidence that no matter what happened, I could face it and be alright. Even if they locked me up for years, I knew I’d be alright.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“In place of my record stood a God whom I had mocked, ridiculed, and despised, a God whom I had ignored and considered myself to be above, independent of, and smarter than. Against all logic, He chose to set an ungrateful and condemned man free... again!”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“He did not remove me from the situations I created and the path that I chose, nor did He nullify the awful consequences of those decisions. He let me choose my path, and He allowed things to unfold in their natural sequence so that I could see the fruits of my decisions, but He was there for me every step of the way.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“All I knew for certain was that somehow this God managed to see good in me when I could only see bad in myself. This God seemed determined not to give up on me, even when I felt like giving up on myself. To me, God had been little more than a fairytale. To me He was an abstract concept or set of ideas, not a living person who was all-powerful and real. And yet this fairytale was beginning to break out of its pages into the real world—into my life.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“The “gospel,” the “good news” that gives us hope, is the fact that God accepts us as we are, even before we’ve fixed up our lives or believed all the right things. His only requirement is what my lawyers required of me: to stop denying and hiding my faults so that they could help me. To admit I didn’t have my act together. To believe that He wanted to help me. To plead guilty, not because it would benefit me but because I finally understood that my sin was killing me, destroying me from the inside out, robbing my precious minutes and hours, filling my mind with lies and delusions. For any who would trust in Him, Jesus stands before the judgment seat of God defending them against the evil one who flings accusations at them day and night, ever scheming to destroy them.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“A desire for the spiritual had awakened inside of me, but I wasn’t sure how to address it. Each time I experienced God, I realized that I wasn’t alone, and that there was much more to this life, but because of my negative experiences with religion, I refused to seek God in any traditional setting.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose

“I had trained myself to be dependent on these things and now I needed to train myself to separate from them. It took years to get addicted and it would take years to get to get unaddicted.”
― Michael J Heil, Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose