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Thursday, May 17, 2012

I Just Want to Be With You

When you think of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, what comes to your mind? Does a smile stretch across your face and do you give a little sigh of peace and contentment? Do you cringe a little and try to think of something else because you're either very discontent or you feel hurt and betrayed with where you are in life at this moment?

In our Monday evening small group we are going through the book Forgotten God by Francis Chan and it has been incredible. The book focuses on how the Holy Spirit is our forgotten God and that we don't really pay much attention to Him or give Him much credit. The world tends to see the Spirit as mystical rather than real and tangible. But when you sit down and look through the gospels, and Acts, and really the whole New Testament, the Spirit is everywhere! He is active and alive and very real.

This last chapter was called A Real Relationship. It talks about how we see God and how that affects our relationship with Him.

I've a attached a video, and at minute 7 (follow along til minute 12) it really hit home for me and it sums up the struggle and desire of my heart in a beautiful picture of how his daughter sees him, check out Francis speaking here.

When Francis says that his daughter doesn't think about the fact that her daddy is in the middle of speaking to thousands of people up on a stage, all she thinks about is that he is her daddy and she just wants to be with him. She does what seems natural and normal to her, she gets up out of her seat in the audience, walks up onto the stage where her dad picks her up and whispers, "What do you want Mercy?" and she answers, "I just want to be with you." What a beautiful picture of what our relationship with Christ should be.

I have always struggled with knowing that God is my Daddy while at the same time knowing that He is holy and pure and how can He be both at once? How can I cry out, "Daddy!" to my only and all-powerful God? Isn't that disrespectful? Isn't that me ignoring the fact that He is this magnificent being who is perfect in every way? No.

I want to cry out to Him, not out of disrespect but out of love and desire to just be near Him and with Him! I want to have such a deep and intimate relationship that while I know that God is holy, He is pure and perfect, He is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and at the same time He is also my Daddy who longs for me to cry out to Him and just want to spend time with Him.

There is a time for me to come to my Father and confess my sins, ask for His forgiveness, and repent from my fleshly desires. There is a time for me to shed tears at His feet while I struggle through the trials of this life. There is a time to stand in awe of who He is, to let my words be few and to let the wonder of Jesus fill my heart. There is a time for me to call out, "Daddy!" run into His arms and rest in His presence and love.

There is a time for everything ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

I want to rest in Him. I want to yearn for Him. I want to pursue Him. I want to wait on Him. I want to trust Him. I want to love Him. I want to laugh with Him. I want to cry with Him. I want to struggle with Him. I want to follow Him wherever He may lead me. I want to live life in a way that expresses my desire that "I just wan to be with You".

This is a beautiful picture and it is one that I hope I will not easily forget. I will never forget the holiness of my God, but I never want to miss out on the intimacy that He calls me too just because all I can think about is His holiness. 

I have heard it said that if we could figure God out He really wouldn't be God. He is so many aspects in one. He is holy and yet He loves sinners. He is Lord and Master and yet He longs to take my burdens upon Himself. I am coming to realize that I am not meant to understand God but to trust Him. I will never fully comprehend all the He is, yet I can choose to acknowledge that He is God and I am not. That He is in control and that His plan is perfect. 

My desire is to not try and figure Him out but rather to love Him. I don't want to waste my time researching, worrying and stressing over the things that I do not understand. I would rather learn to enjoy Him. To open my heart to Him and let Him reveal what He desires and not try and force understanding. 

I truly desire my faith to be a child like faith. Which requires me to let go of my "need" to know everything and instead be content in things unseen.

5 comments:

  1. The interaction between Francis and his daughter is such a beautiful illustration of the kind of interactions God longs to have with us!It is always nice to be reminded that God calls us to intimacy with Himself. Thanks for being my reminder today!

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  2. I love your words Katherine. I miss you! Wanna come over to my guest house and have hot chocolate (or maybe just a warm bottle of water, 'cause that's basically all I can offer at the moment)?

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  3. Just thinking about the relationship God longs to share with us and the simple fact of His awesome greatness and majesty...Awesome. Just simply awesome. Thanks for provoking my thoughts today. :)

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  4. @TW: You are so welcome!

    @Juanita: I miss you too! Warm water sounds...hmmm, maybe I'll just stick with seeing you and skip the liquid part :)

    @Shelia: Glad His words have touched your heart today!

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  5. This reminds me of what I was reading in Job yesterday, about God's holiness and OTHERness: that He is not like us, He is not our homie or BFF. Job 36:26 says, "God is exalted, and WE DON'T KNOW HIM." 37:5 says He does great things that WE DON'T UNDERSTAND. God is amazing in His compassion and His intimate knowledge of us, and His mercy is great, allowing us to call Him Abba, Father, but we must remember that He is holy and altogether unlike us.
    Thank you for this thoughtful post.

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