Tag Archives: Intimacy with God

Here am I

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Last week, I was struck by two statements in Isaiah 65:1-2. “To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people….”

The vision of God calling and reaching out to people who disregard Him struck me deeply. Many times, I have disregarded God in the craziness and chaos of living life and distanced myself from Him. All the while, He says…Here am I, here am I. He repeats it to grab my attention and underscore His intent. All day long He stretches out toward me longing for me to reach back. It’s overwhelming and completely undoing that Yahweh, the Eternal Majesty, continually reaches for my self-centered preoccupied soul.

God is the silent footfall at my side leaving invisible tracks of glittering glory winding through the reality of my messy days. He does not pursue me for anything in me, but what lies in the core of Him. We are an undeserving obstinate people, that God deeply loves and gave His life to redeem. His open hands are an open door to a deeper dimension of knowing Him. I cannot get my mind around why the transcendent God would open Himself to a personal encounter with me.

When I seek Him and when I don’t, when I cry for help and when I’m self-sufficient, all day long He holds out His hands to me. Catch that? All day long He is reaching for you. Right now, before you read further, pause with that picture. Envision the open hands of God before you. Sit with it. Ponder it.

He is reaching through all of my life whether I see Him or not. He says, “Here am I” in the unfolding Spring bud. In the dropping Autumn leaf, “Here am I.”  In the first beat of a new heart and the stilling of another, “Here am I.” In the colors of dawn and in the deepest darkness of night, “Here am I.” When surrounded by a never-ending stream of issues and people and when alone in the silence of myself, “Here am I.” Here am I in your mess. Here am I in your joy. Here am I when you face challenges and struggles. I am named “God with you.” Name Me in your peace and in your turmoil. Name Me at the insurmountable and impossible. When the way ahead is unclear, here am I, I AM with you. See Me.

There’s a phrase from the movie Avatar that has found its way into my soul and into my dialog with God: I see you. It means, I see your love. I see your heart and soul for me and you mean everything to me.

Every moment holds the possibility of a personal, intimate encounter with the transcendent God. This is the sum and whole of the journey – to respond to His loving invitation and be filled with the fullness of His life. My part is to turn toward Him in trusting openness throughout my day, and say, “I see You.”

Why does He so persistently reach for me? What does He want? Does He want me to spend more time reading scripture, volunteering at church, taking up a cause, giving more money, helping people, surrendering my time and talents to Him, etc., etc.? I used to think so. Those doings are outcomes but they are not what God is so intentionally and passionately pursuing. Maybe He’s opening His hands to take my fears, my worries, my struggles and my pain so that I can rest in His sweet embrace and simply be with Him. His whisper of “Here am I” is His reach of tender compassion. He wants me see Him and sink into His love. He will do the rest as it most pleases Him.

I see You, and You mean everything to me.

2016 Reflections

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The last couple of days I’ve spent a little time looking back at 2016 and rereading my journal. I don’t journal every day or every week, but I periodically pencil my prayers and thoughts and God-words. As I browsed the pages, I felt again the heartbeat of my prayers and felt the pulse of His behind it.
The page dated 1/1/16 begins with this prayer: “This year, Lord, I want to go deeper with You, abide more fully in Your love and taken into Your secrets and into rare intimacy with you. How my heart yearns for You, but quakes before my weakness and failures….Oh, wondrous love that accepts me as I am then fills me and lifts me to infinitely more than I deserve, more than I can conceive…and all that You desire. So, breathe in me a yearning for more of You. Stir the embers of my heart into a fiery love for You, and take me deeper and deeper into the secret place of rare intimacy with you, O God.”
This yearning for a deeper relationship and for rare intimacy with God continued pouring onto the pages of 2016. My inclination now is to judge how well I did in that pursuit and whether I achieved my goal, but there is a fatal flaw in that thread of thinking. Tug on it a bit, and my life unravels.
The intimacy and depth I long for isn’t something God awards to high achievers and do-gooders. It can’t be achieved by even the most spiritual or the rest of us in our more spiritual moments. If it could, then my relationship with God would be performance-based and not grace-based. If my faith rests on my faithfulness in the pursuit, then I am doomed and will surely fail…I have failed.
I wrote on June 12 that God doesn’t dangle something in front of me and ask me to attain it. Instead, He offers freely what only He can give and what I could never attain. He doesn’t demand that I muster up more doing power and greater faithfulness. I am called in my weakness to entrust my unfaithful self to the Mighty One who will do in me all that He wants of me and from me.
Deepening intimacy is the fruit and power of redeeming love, indeed, it is the aim of redemption…that I may be filled with all the fullness of God and enjoy a deepening experience of His nearness until the perfect image of Christ is formed in my soul.
So, I think it’s summed up like this: My part is to yield all I am and trust all He is. To just be who I am in Him and let Him be all He is in me.
It’s not just a 2016 or 2017 pursuit, it’s a calling to a lifetime journey. It’s yielding my time and my focus to sit every day at the feet of the Living God lost in wonder, love and praise.
Stir the embers of my heart into a fiery love for You, and take me deeper and deeper into the secret place of rare intimacy with you, O God.