I was
flipping through the CCEF website the other day and came across a blog post about
their upcoming conference, titled “Not Alone.” This quote in particular caught
my attention:
"One of our core goals,” my colleague suggested, “is to
move people toward a relationship with God that is every bit as real as their relationships with
other people."
My heart skipped a beat as I processed the magnitude of the hope
he was holding out. I am yearning
for a deep experience of that but not feeling it right now, I
thought, and I bet I’m not the
only one.1
As I read
that, I realized… that’s my yearning too. I’ve been trying so hard to “fill up”
on good teaching, intimacy in relationships with people, and working hard
toward changing to how I think God wants me to change. And all I feel is tired.
I’m working so hard for these tangible “results” that I want to hold on to, but
after each insight, each hang-out the feeling of dissatisfaction creeps back
in. I’ve been looking for something that can only be found in God. I’ve been
running so hard after the work of God that I disregarded God Himself. Reading
those few sentences started to turn the tide of my weariness into a thirst for
the Living God.
The fact
is our relationship with God is THE most real relationship in our lives. However,
this is not the way we naturally live our lives. We get so consumed in our own
lives – our responsibilities, our concerns, our wants, our purposes, that we
tunnel vision into our own reality that has us as the main character in our
little world. It’s exhausting. And it is often in those times we feel like God
is very far away. We can recall biblical truths, but it just doesn’t feel like
God hears, much less cares.
God
remembers. God sees. God knows. Jesus came and became a friend of sinners. And
now we have the very Spirit of God living in us. This is an intimacy beyond
what our brains can comprehend. In Jesus’ last prayer for us he prays, “I do not ask for these only, but also for
those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just
as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that
the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I
have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you
in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you
sent me and loved them even as you loved me (John 17:20-23).” God our Father’s
purpose for us is for our relationship with Him to be as intimate as the love
between the Father and the Son. I don’t
think we really believe how real our relationship with God is. God is holding
out an intimate, daily, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” relationship.
If you
are feeling tired, weary, or purposeless, maybe, just maybe, you are looking
more at what God is doing in your life than loving God Himself. God invites us
to come. He invites us to come and have rest. He invites us to drink living
water. He invites us to have a relationship with Him that will make our closest
relationships pale in comparison.
Dear
church, we talk about our relationship with God all the time, but I don’t think
we realize the fireworks-going-off-in-my-brain hope that we’re talking about.
We worship a living God. He is real. Do you want to know Him?
