James 4: 8
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
This is a very simple little verse and easy to understand. You would have to do considerable work to complicate it. So, my question then is why are we not all very close to God?
I see two answers, one pretty obvious. The obvious answer is that we have not drawn near to Him. God will always let you be in charge of your relationship with Him. He is gentle and kind so He will never force himself on you. I have heard it said that each of us is just as close to God as we have chosen to be. That is pretty uncomfortable to hear but is probably true.
But some people do honestly seek God and still haven’t the closeness they wish to have with Him. So here is answer two. Many of us are afraid to allow anyone to get too close to us. We pull away from relationships that are close to the heart. We are afraid of exposing the tender parts of our hearts. So often we try to act tough. We act so strong, but to the wise these are screaming declarations that we are broken and scared. The stronger we pretend to be, the more the educated can see that we are really hiding our tenderness. Now, if we are afraid to let people close to us, how much harder is it for us to let God into the most tender and intimate chambers of ourselves? How are we to expose our hurts and injuries? Just allowing someone to see the fragility of who we really are is threatening enough but God can see clearly, and we know it. We can lie to people, but we cannot lie to God. He recognizes a lie and sees the truth. So, what ends up happening is that we seek God with our mouths, but our hearts remain closed, as do our ears.
Here is the good news of the gospel. God heals. He heals broken hearts and that is all that is keeping you from enjoying deep, intimate fellowship with Him. Isn’t that great news? God can fix all of this. Ok, you have to have a little bit of courage. Certainly, you have courage as big as a salt crystal. It doesn’t take very much. You don’t want to be afraid all your life and keep running away from your problems, do you? That is such a painful existence. If you can have courage even as much as a grain of sand, God can fix it all. And it is, honestly, a lot less painful than living the life that you are living now. I compare it to having a splinter in your foot. Are you really going to live with that splinter the rest of your life? It hurts all the time, every day yet God can remove it so easily. And you probably won’t even feel Him remove it. You are just afraid, but what you are afraid of is nothing. You are afraid of a hurt that you will probably never feel. If you do feel any pain at all, believe me, it is less than the hurt that you suffer every day and put your family and friends through. Also, any pain suffered with God healing you is so short lived as to not even be deemed significant. Just have a little tiny bit of courage and a little bit of trust and you can truly be set free. You will enjoy your life so much more and you can become intimate, close friends with God. If you will let Him in, He will be your constant companion and your best friend. That is a really great place to be, and you can have it.
I want that for you. I want you to have all that is your right. We can talk about being kings and queens in Christ but how many of us are living the life Jesus ordained for us? You are entitled to live in Yahweh’s presence. Draw near to Him. Be not afraid!
