Intimacy with God

Getting close to God and staying close to God should be a priority for every Christian. As we get ready to start a new year, I thought it might be good to think together about a few things that help us stay close to the Lord. I hope these reminders will bring value to your life.

I’ve found that intimacy with God is a constant joy and a constant frustration. The closer we get to the Lord the greater our joy. Yet there is a frustration because the closer we get to Him, there is this awareness of how much closer we need to be. Even the Apostle Paul dealt with this in his life (Phil. 3). It seems we can never arrive at perfect fellowship with God because of our sin and our pride. We always have room to grow and the moment we start to coast is the moment we start to drift away. But as we keep moving in the right direction, there is great joy and delight in His presence. I guess we have to keep living with that tension as long as we are connected to a fallen planet.

Intimacy with the Lord is never accidental, but rather intentional. No one gets close to God by mistake. We have to do it on purpose. We need to have the daily discipline to stay in the Word and linger in prayer if we ever expect to enjoy real closeness with God. Of course the biggest barrier for most of us is our busy schedules. To carve out daily time is a real struggle. We have so many responsibilities and deadlines to meet. I’ve been at this a while and I still wrestle with trying to fit my quiet time into my schedule rather than building my schedule around my quiet time.

Intimacy is enhanced by trials, not hindered by them. It is the high winds on the mountain side that rock the trees back and forth. But as the trees are being blown around, the soil deep beneath their roots is being loosened by the rocking motion the wind creates. The high winds actually make it possible for their roots to grow deeper. Friends, that is also true of those things in our lives that blow us around. Of course much depends upon our response to those high winds, but the winds are never wasted on those seeking intimacy with the Almighty.

Intimacy requires times of isolation. We all know the account of Elijah’s great showdown with the Baal worshipers on Mt. Carmel in First Kings 18. After the great victory, Elijah needed an intimate time with God to hear His voice. It was only in the sound of silence that he could hear from God. As you prepare for 2010, I hope you will be able to find a place of solitude to get direction from the Lord for the New Year.

Intimacy is a spiritual battle. I am convinced that Satan fears the weakest Christian who gets on his knees. He will bring us every kind of obstacle, distraction and hindrance to keep us from getting closer to the Lord. He fears the damage we can do to his kingdom, but he also hates to see God communing with His child. He knows what great joy God takes in our closeness with Him and the devil hates God so much, he seeks to rob God of that intimacy. Let us determine not the give our enemy any such pleasure.

The Power of Prayer

I read a story recently about a lady who had a terrible morning. She had just put a pie in the oven when she received a phone call from the school that her son was very sick and needed to come home. She thought she would have time to pick him up and get back for the pie, so she got in the car to leave. On the way to the school, her cell phone went off—it was the school nurse. Her son was getting worse, so the nurse called the family doctor and the woman needed to immediately go to get a prescription for her son. She quickly changed course and ran into the drug store. She hurried back to the car only to discover that she had locked her car keys inside. Just then the phone rang again. Her son sounded terrible. Before he could finish his first sentence to her he said, “I’m going to be sick again.” And the phone went dead.

She walked back toward the drug store hoping to get some help when the phone rang—it was her son calling back. She quickly told him about the keys when he suggested getting a wire coat hanger to get the keys. The phone went dead again. She looked inside the drug store which had plenty of wooden and plastic hangers, but nothing made out of wire. She walked out of the store and saw along the curb a wire coat hanger! She was overjoyed, but quickly realized that she had no idea how to use it. That was when she remembered the pie in the oven. She sat down on a bench and prayed, “Lord, my boy is sick and needs his medicine and my pie is burning and my keys are locked in the car, and Lord, I don’t know what to do with this coat hanger. Please send me someone who knows how to use this thing.”

She wiped her eyes, got up from the bench when a beat up old car pulled up. A young man with stringy hair tattered clothes and a long unkempt beard got out. The woman walked tight up to him and said, “Do you know how to use this wire to unlock a car?” The young man was a little startled, but took the hanger and said, “Where’s the car?”

In a short time the door was unlocked and the keys were in her hands. She gave the young man a big hug and said, “Oh, the Lord sent you. You’re such a good boy. You must be a Christian.”

He stepped back and said, “No ma’am, I’m not a Christian, and I am not a good boy. I just got out of prison yesterday.”

She hugged him again and said, “Praise God! He sent me a professional!

Life’s tough—pray hard.