Come closer

I often feel that more is being said about life and God in my silence here, than all my feeble words put together. Often, just living life – real life – takes so much out of me that I cannot maintain a virtual presence here.

This has been a season filled with paradoxes. In the midst of intense loneliness, I am learning about intimacy. As the duties of a leader and preacher thrust me into the occasional spotlight outwardly, I yearn inwardly to become small and hidden.

Living in the midst of these paradoxes, I have found comfort in the psalms. As I meditate on them, and memorise them, they have echoed in my heart, sometimes so loudly, that I cannot sleep.

“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God…how precious also are Your thoughts to me…Your thoughts…Your thoughts…”

How close must you get to someone, to say that you know their thoughts? It is possible to observe someone’s deeds from a distance, or you could simply hear about them through someone else. Of a good friend we might say, “That’s not something he would do”, but of how many people can we say confidently, “I know exactly what he thinks about this”?

Can we say that we have come so close to God, and know Him so well, that we know His thoughts?

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxieties…know my anxieties…know my anxieties…”

To whom do you share your most private worries and anxieties with? In fact, is there anyone at all? We would gladly show off our strengths and talents to the whole world, and again, it doesn’t take very much to know someone’s strengths. In fact, just reading someone’s bio-data would do, you don’t even need to know this person.

But only someone we love and trust very much is allowed access to our deepest and most private fears and anxieties.

When all we allow God to know about ourselves are our strengths, all the time hiding our shame and fears, what does that say about the state of our relationship with Him?

Will we trust God enough and rest so securely in His love and acceptance, that we can allow Him to come so very close, and know our anxieties?

I pray that His Word will echo in your heart so loudly that like me, you will have many sleepless nights.