When this past year have you felt like the hunter? The hunted? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1303).
Fundamentally, I wish to avoid pain and seek pleasure. In broad strokes this can be seen as striving after opportunities and avoiding feelings of victimization. Over my lifetime opportunities have included ways and means to fulfill curiosity; seeking and increasing skill and knowledge; the search for tangible resources and assets; striving for soulmates (this may or may not include sexual relationships—to include, for example, friendships); opportunities to fulfill basic needs including health, food, clothing, and shelter as well as opportunities to experience beauty, joy, harmony, peace, fun, excitement, and yes even in a somber way the experience of significant sadness. Likewise, one can be hunted for mutually positive outcomes. For example, when I find a soulmate who is likewise hunting for a soulmate great happiness can result. My parents made it very clear to me that before I was born they were hunting for someone like me to enter their lives.
Obviously
one event can have multiple dimensions. For example, when I attended
the university I was looking not only for knowledge, but for possible
soulmates as well. Likewise, multiple roles are often experienced at
once. A student may feel like the hunter while taking a standardized
achievement test—with great opportunities waiting in the wings.
However the same student can be forgiven for feeling the hunted as
super critical final arbiters of knowledge are poised in the wings
eager to expose his every weakness and failure. The same mixed
feelings can accompany filling out a job application or during the
progress of a job interview.
Jesus
came to seek and to save the lost—a hunter role. He sought for and
established friendships and chose disciples. Yet it is equally clear
that he was the hunted—not only by those seeking salvation but by
those seeking to destroy him.
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