Intimacy with God

Friendship is a good thing. We all need friends. When I meet a friend for coffee, we usually express delight to see each other as we greet and prepare to spend some time together. We look forward to the encounter and we listen to each other’s hearts as we share our lives with each other. And when we part, we often make plans to meet again soon and anticipate that time of fellowship together.

What does it look like when I meet with God? Do I sometimes blow Him off because I am too busy? “Sorry God, just no time for you today. I need another hour of sleep and then I have lots to do.” Do I go through a routine that I designed to discipline myself to do ‘morning devotions’? I read so many chapters of the Bible. Yes, yes, I’ve read it before. I know what it says. I pull out my list of prayer requests and read through it. God be with this person. Heal that person. Give them what they want. And then rush into my day with no other thought of God and muscle through my activities whatever they are.

Jesus had much grace with the disciples as He instructed them in the years He spent with them. I think He has much grace for us too as we learn who He is and how to relate to Him. James and John wanted to be important in His kingdom. Philip struggled with trusting Jesus to come through. Peter thought he could handle it all until he found himself denying Jesus not once but three times! Somehow, when we come to the end of ourselves, we finally begin to look for Jesus.

The more I understand who God is, the more I get up in the morning with anticipation of our time together. The more I am overwhelmed by His love – that He would pay attention to me! The God who created the heaven and the earth and all that is in it would want to meet with me each day and share His heart with me! He has given me the privilege of praying – not so I can control the things happening around me, but so that I can join His heart for the people He cares about. He allows me to participate in the work He is doing!

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!” Lamentations 3:22-24 Jeremiah pens these verses in the middle of lamenting being homeless and grieving all that he has lost. And following these verses, he expresses his hope that he has found in knowing God’s love. He is able to worship God in the most dire of circumstances. Paul and Silas worshiped God while sitting in prison because they knew they were loved.

God has invited us to seek Him and to desire to be in His presence. “In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:12-13 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8

God is not hiding from us. He is right here in our midst, inviting us to come, rest in Him, receive nurture and friendship, and be loved. Meeting with Him isn’t a discipline, it is a privilege and an act of love for each other! When I have truly given and received that love, I am free to love others well. I John 4-5 lay out a beautiful picture of what it means to be loved by God and how that effects the way we behave toward others.  Our time of worship, listening, sharing, and receiving from God daily is so important to our relationship with God and it is what feeds our relationships with each other. I sure don’t want to miss that. Do you?

When the Lion Roars

 Rejection. We’ve all experienced it somewhere along the line. For some it is severe rejection. We feel it when we are the last chosen for a pick-up field game with friends or classmates. We feel it as teenagers when we can’t seem to connect with others as we want to. We feel it when we don’t get that job we applied for. Some feel it as they go through divorce, abuse in the home, or abuse in the neighborhood or even church. The hardest kind of rejection is when we have poured ourselves into another, loved them deeply and invested much time and even money into them only to have them walk away or worse yet, demean us and then walk away.

Hosea was talking to the Israelites. God invested in Abraham, his son Isaac, and then Jacob who He renamed Israel. Then God invested much time and resources into Jacob’s descendants as He freed them from the slavery in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land. After years of living in prosperity in the land, they wanted to be like other nations and have a king. So God gave them a king. They continued to want to be like other nations until there was no difference between them and the nations around them!

God continually sent prophets to warn them and help them turn their faces back to God, but the people rejected the prophets and their message. Finally, when God saw that they could not be turned back, He sent Hosea and in Hosea 11, we see God’s heart crying out from the pain of rejection. He has raised Israel up, taught her to walk, loved her, given her everything she could want. Yet Israel has chosen to reject Him. And He says, “But since my people refuse to return to me, they will return to Egypt (slavery) and will be forced to serve Assyria (a foreign political agenda). Hosea 11:5 “For my people are determined to desert me. They call me the Most High, but they don’t truly honor me.” Hosea 11:7 The God of compassion is hurting from the rejection much as a parent carries the pain of a wayward child. There is nothing a parent can do but pray and wait and hope. Anything they say or do pushes the child further away and makes the rejection deeper. All they want is for the child to return with a soft heart, able to love them again like they did as a child.

God says, “My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows. No, I will not unleash my fierce anger. I will not completely destroy Israel, for I am God and not mere mortal. I am the Holy One living among you, and I will not come to destroy. For someday the people will follow me. I, the Lord, will roar like a lion. And when I roar, my people will return trembling from the west. Like a flock of bids, they will come from Egypt (slavery). Trembling like doves, they will return from Assyria (foreign political agenda). And I will bring them home again,” says the Lord. Hosea 11:8b-11

Hosea still speaks to us today. Those who reject the ways of the Lord end up in all kinds of slavery. Addictions to wealth, status, power, food, drugs and alcohol to name a few. And they end up serving political agendas that are not of God’s design and become more and more restricting until the people are made into zombies not able to think for themselves or make choices. It is a little like a frog in water that is being heated. It doesn’t jump out because it doesn’t realize the danger until it is too late.

When a lion roars, we listen and we respond. When the lion roars, we will return from all that we have allowed to distract us and lead us away from Him and we will pay attention. He will then bring us back home to the completeness that He has designed us to be – to walk in His image. Oh that we would come willingly before He roars and experience His kingdom here and now! It is a kingdom filled with joy, peace, and love. The God who created us desires relationship with us and has gone to great lengths to keep the communications channel open and invite us home. How will we respond to Him?

When a Brother Hates a Brother

We live in a time and place where we learn to stay out of each other’s business. We turn a blind eye when we see hurtful things happening around us. We quickly learn that to get involved means we become a lightning rod for the anger or hateful behavior. Meanwhile, people suffer. Children are neglected or abused, women are used and abused, and young boys are sold for a can of beer.

In II Samuel 13, we are told the story of King David’s sons Amnon and Absalom and his daughter Tamar who was the sister of Absalom. Amnon thought he was in love with Tamar and, with a cousin, devised a plan to get her into his room where he raped her. His “love” (which was apparently only lust) turned to hate and he despised her and threw her out and locked the door. When her brother Absalom heard about it, his hate for his brother simmered under the surface. He took his sister in because she was now no longer a virgin and would not be desirable for marriage. King David was angry, but did nothing – maybe because this follows after his adulterous encounter with Bathsheba. What can a father say to a son after he has just committed the horrible sins of rape and murder himself? Judgment had been pronounced on David. “This is what the Lord says: Because of what you have done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you.” II Samuel 13:11a  

This is one place where David failed as a role model for his sons. Now Absalom had killed Amnon and the king mourned for Amnon (even though he was angry with him for raping Tamar) and Absalom fled. The family is very broken and still there is no accountability, no conversations, no seeking forgiveness or granting forgiveness.

When a brother hates a brother, the hate turns to murder. Bitterness grows and people are hurt on every side.

Jesus taught another way. First he taught that even if we think murderous thoughts, we are a murderer. “Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.” I John 3:15

Second, he taught that love overcomes evil. “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” Matthew 5:43-44

I wonder if we are willing to get involved in the lives of others and get to know both the people who are being hurt and the people who are doing the hurting, if we began to speak God’s truth and love into their lives, could this bring people to repentance and bring forgiveness and healing rather than bitterness and hate. Would we be able to bring about positive change to the lives of both those being abused and those doing the abusing?

Lord, in a hard and abusive world around me, please keep my heart soft and full of your love that I can be a beacon of light to those in distress and allow your light in me to shine in the dark places where bitterness, hate and anger dwell. Teach me to love others more, to pray for them and open myself to be a friend to them. In the precious name of Jesus, Amen.