The Only Drawing You Are Doing Is On A Piece Of Paper
James 4:6-10 New King James Version (NKJV)
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” 7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
I study a lot about relationships and how we interact within them, what is healthy and what can lead to unhealthy behaviors within them. Each time I discover something new, I discover how much work I have to do within all of my relationships especially when it comes to my fellowship with God. I used to think if I prayed, went to church read my Bible and was relatively nice to people and tried my hardest to exhibit obedience that I was in like Flynn. Boy did I discover that there is so much more that we miss when it comes to God, especially when it comes to drawing near to Him. Most of us, like me, are filling in blanks and checking off boxes, but we are not drawing on anything but a piece of paper because we are too busy accounting for all that we already do; we are scheduling God in around what we are already committed to do thinking that because it is something God that it pleases God. This is not necessarily true.
We are missing what God is really asking of us, when He is asking us to draw near, He asking for us to understand where we are in relationship to Him, and understand what is inside of us, what our real motives are and to get to a place of humility, because we understand that we have not arrived, and it is going to take only God to get us where we need to be. Our Bishop said something in Bible study last night that blew my mind; He said God does not have tolerance for toxic relationships. God is the one who initiated relationship with us, it reminds us in Jeremiah 31:3 and Psalms 31:21 that in loving kindness He draws us. But relationships are never meant to be one sided, they are meant to have balance, (although, most of us understand that we will probably never love God the way that He loves us, but we can surely try). It is then we are supposed to continually draw near to God, having an understanding that we are in need of something He is in great possession of Grace, Mercy and His love. It is our ability to draw near to God in humility that drives out pride and haughtiness, it drives out self-serving behaviors and worldly focus. The closer we get to anyone the more vulnerable we are and the more open we are and the more sensitive we become. Many of us don’t want to get that close to God because we fear, what might happen or what it is that this type of closeness will do to us, what God will show us about ourselves, or the people we keep company with or heaven forbid He allows us to see our focus is off. When we draw near to God we draw near and receive revelation, insight and abilities that we do not possess without God and without the grace that is provided by becoming close to Him.
We want so much, and so many of us are drawing our own plans and mapping out our own lives, neglecting the most important drawing we can do, which is the drawing close to God through Christ Jesus, and allowing the Holy Spirit access to provide us grace but to also provide us conviction, direction and humility to understand that we need God and that all that we do should be centered around that one relationship. If we draw near to God He will continue to draw near to us, because the closer we get to Him the more we can see how much more of Him we need and how much more we need to do to keep our relationship with Him from becoming one that He would spew out of His mouth.
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