Close to God
Sometimes I just want to physically curl up in the lap of God and feel completely safe. To experience uninterrupted, lasting peace. To have no worries and no fears about the future. God knew we would need assurance in this area so it’s no wonder the scriptures repeatedly refer to Him as a refuge, a shelter, and a fortress. We were created with this need for peace and security. There are references in Psalm 91 and Isaiah 49 to abiding in the secret places of the Most High and being hidden in the shadow of God’s hand.
I believe this desire for closeness with the Lord relates to our need to feel safe and secure. It can be both a blessing and a burden in our lives, a blessing as it drives us to seek Him and a burden because we know the intimacy we crave will not be met fully in this earthly life. I try to recreate this feeling of closeness in my devotional and prayer times, either holed up in a room at home or out walking in the woods. I grasp something of this closeness when singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs either alone or with fellow believers. I catch a glimpse of it when I notice God’s hand orchestrating aspects of my life through providential moments and in seasons of tangible blessings.
I wonder if the Israelites experienced a measure of this complete peace and safety as they witnessed the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Moses must have felt it during those one to one meetings with the living God on the mountaintop. It seems the disciple Cleopas felt this way after spending the day unknowingly with the risen Christ, when he realised he exclaimed “Weren’t our hearts burning within us while he was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32 CSB).
I love how Cleopas describes how he felt in the presence of Jesus, when Jesus revealed himself through the scriptures. I pray that our hearts would also burn within us as we spend time in His word, as we pray and as we seek Him in the minutiae of our everyday lives.
In the gospel of John chapter 21, we read of Jesus’s third resurrection appearance to His disciples. I imagine the disciples experienced immeasurable peace when they sat on the sand with Jesus; enjoying the warmth of the charcoal fire, hearing the gentle movement of the sea of Tiberias and the crackling of the flames as they ate food provided for them by their friend and Saviour. After toiling all night fishing with no success (possibly a vain attempt to avoid thinking about what they were going to do with their lives) this breakfast with Jesus must have been a balm to their souls.
We may lament the distance we feel from God at times and acknowledge the longing for closeness, but we can be encouraged by the promise of His presence with us now and always.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you. ( John 14:16-17 CSB)
We have the counsel of Christ promised to us, He remains with us and will be in us.
Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. The one who doesn’t love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me. (John 14:23-24 CSB)
As we treasure Christ and hold fast to His word He makes His home with us. What could be a safer, more peaceful place than to be at home dwelling with Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
It is still the heart of the Father that we would seek Him and find Him when we seek Him with all of our hearts. As we draw near to Jesus He will draw near to us.
In those moments when the urge to retreat from life seeks to overwhelm us, we can imitate Christ and entrust our lives into the hands of our Father.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:14-15 CSB)
Christ is the Good Shepherd, He has committed to keeping us. He laid down His very life for us. He knows us and we can know Him. In this beautiful truth we find complete peace, complete safety and freedom from fear.