“I Want to Be Closer to God”
And Other Hilarious Measurements
I once asked a friend how his brother was doing. He told me, “Well, he’s attempting to get nearer to Christ. But, you know, like me, he’s not quite there yet.”
At the time I didn’t know what to say to that, but, in the madness of hindsight it struck me one day — how does one measure nearness to Jesus? Is it in feet? Kilometers? Is it like a radio dial, where one needs to tune in to the correct Hertz? Perhaps amps of intensity? Degrees on a protractor?
In his novel, Sir Gibbie, George MacDonald wrote:
Of all teachings, that which presents a far distant God is the nearest to absurdity. Either there is none, or he is nearer to every one of us than our nearest consciousness of self.
I decided to compose a letter.
In achieving nearness, some have tried the intensity path, going to worship concerts or hopping from church to church or conference to conference. Others have tried the knowledge trail—signing up for courses, studying or diligently memorizing the Bible. But although these can be very good for us, they don’t always give us quite the sort of answers we need. I mean, the unspoken questions at the core of our being seem somehow immune to motivational rhetoric and keyboard choral pizazz (even Christian pizazz).
One can hardly be blamed for ending up with the thought that, since God’s home is in heaven, walking there must be something like trying to reach the end of a rainbow.
I tried it once as a small boy. I’d heard that if I just kept walking, I’d eventually reach it and perhaps find a pot of gold. Imagine how rich I’d be! So, in a flight of fancy only the profoundly literal among us can appreciate, I started out, nervous but hopeful. Needless to say, it didn’t work out and I ended up getting lost (you’ve been nervous and hopeful about something but disappointed? It hits you). I became somewhat bitter about rainbows and never saw them the same way again.
What I didn’t understand at the time is, as Jesus said, His kingdom does not come with observable signs. You can’t tune him in, since there’s no radio dial for spirit. And you could never work hard enough to earn your way into his courts. His power, experience and deeds dwarf yours. You’d only wind up running yourself miserably into the ground trying to keep up.
Author Brennan Manning once wrote of a prophetic word Jesus spoke over 34 year-old widow, Marjory Kempe, in Lynn, Massachusetts way back in 1667. Relish the simplicity of this:
More pleasing to Me than all your prayers, works, and penances is that you would believe I love you.
Love is the great equalizer.
Love means that a king, even a very powerful or busy one, would travel long and very far to dine with a person whom he loved. Even one who we think is much lesser person. The class and value systems we have in human (and animal) societies just don’t exist the same way in heaven. This is why Jesus came to earth, though the Pharisees could not fathom it when he, for instance, ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners.
But love is not blind, nor powerless. God knew that before a life could be transformed, the inner man must be renewed. How? Well, look at the way the universe was created. In the beginning was chaos and nothingness. But the great word of God, “Let there be light,” went out, and emptiness began to be filled. Chaos turned to order. Darkness separated from light.
In the same way, God gladly put a new heart and a new spirit in you so that he could tune in and speak with you, and vice versa. Now his great word, sometimes soft, sometimes loud, is being spoken in you every day. You can listen to it, and respond.
In this way, Paul spoke to a group of pagan unbelievers, “He made from one every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth… that they should seek God, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’”
And in this way, Paul wrote to wavering believers, “No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Love means God is ever-present.
So His news is something like this: You can’t walk to heaven because heaven is already here. That’s why I taught you to pray, believing, “On earth as it is in heaven.” It’s why My Son said that the kingdom of God is among you, or, according to some, within you. I am near you already, and am not going away. You can speak to Me, even now.
I want to dedicate this to that friend, his brother, and anyone who has ever wished a closeness with God. Get it in your spirit: the freedom you so desire, to walk by the spirit and not according to the flesh, is not now, nor will it ever be based on your performance. It is based on His.
Instead of striving for closeness, we choose to believe it. It takes faith, but so it is with everything worth doing. That so many Scriptures speak of a veil lying over humanity indicates that the issue between God and man has perhaps been overwrought. The problem between God and man is not, after all, about distance nor separation (indeed, where can one go from your Spirit), but obscuration.
Let’s thank Him, and walk as the sons of God we are, according to that identity purchased for you by Jesus’ blood before you were even born.
Thank you for reading. Besides being a childhood rainbow curmudgeon, I’m a graphic designer and Bible instructor who believes in the power of fellowship in communicating the written word. May the peace of Jesus rest on you today.
