God yearns for His people.
Tap into your memory bank when you finish reading this paragraph.
Close your eyes and imagine. Draw from the sounds and feel of a time when you were completely accepted by a person… without reservations. Not because you are fun or smart or contribute or do good works but simply for who you are. Linger in it for a bit.
How was it?
Now, I want to shout to you. On your good days and on your bad days, this is a small taste of how the Father, Son and Spirit feel about you. God yearns to deepen relationship with you…always. Paint this portrait of His limitless love over any false pictures of God in your memories. God fashioned and re-created each and every one of His people to abide in His initiating first-love in divine interconnectedness. It’s our heritage.
The greatest thought I know to focus on is to marinate in God’s initiating presence, living from this love to connect. God yearns for connection with you because that’s is creation-intent.
I can walk through the highs and lows of life with an unshakeable confidence that I’m the Beloved of the Most High God, Abba’s child. He delights in me and accepts me for who I am, not for what I can contribute. His caring eye is always gazing on me.
It’s His good pleasure to adopt His kids into His forever Family. It’s not something we earn or deserve. Any thoughts of deserving or earning are foolish when we truly know God. His presence makes me worthy. God longs to be close to us, even more than we long for Him. We must begin here through faith in Christ alone, that God yearns for us. We are invited into an honest, vital, spontaneous communion with our Family-of-Three. They hold back nothing.
The Father has never veered from His Eden-intent bless His people and do us good because He has no shifting shadow in Him (James 1:17). This is our heritage, the intimacy the Father and Son designed us for in Genesis 1 and 2.
And we are already connected to Him by faith in Christ as His Blessed and Beloved ones.
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12, emphasis).
Free access! No barriers! No love is more wonderful than that of God’s hand resting with tender care on man’s shoulder. God yearns for us to connect because He loves us as we are, not as we ought to be. And He also loves us so much that He will not leave us where we are today.
Take a deep breath and rest quietly in His presence. Silence is for careful listening and listening is for heart-change. Breathe a silent prayer of gratefulness for His unfailing love. This means that nothing can reach you and no one can do anything to you that does not first penetrate through His unfailing love. This calls us to trust Him explicitly and obey Him quickly to tap into His strategy to live our highest and best. For those who partner with God in His love and calling, God causes all things to work together for our good (Romans 8:28). This is not fatalism. Not blind faith. God fashioned humanity as image-bearers for such an active and unswerving confidence.
“Our insatiable hunger for a depth of Life that only [God] can give is a sort of built-in ‘homing device’ intended to lead us to him. The Trinity is our home, and we are never fully satisfied or at peace until we rest in him. Yet because God wants a loving relationship with us, he does not force us to accept his invitation.” (Gregory A. Boyd, Present Perfect, p. 45).
What is the only limit to this bounty, besides our trust and obedience?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32, emphasis).
None, except our model, Jesus! Do we have a passion to persist to embrace His presence and provision for us? Are we learning to live in Him as a way of life, abiding in good and bad days?
Take a deep belly breath, hold it a bit, and then rest quietly in His presence. Think only that God yearns for deepening relationship with you.
Silence is for careful listening and listening is for heart-change. Breathe a silent prayer of gratefulness for His unfailing love. Come alive as we enjoy His presence.
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
[God] will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).
This could be my single favorite verse in the Bible (at least today!) Notice this five-faceted gem describing how our Community-God connects His life with His people. I have found great value in marinating a few moments in each of the five-facets of this priceless verse in Zephaniah 3:17, especially the extremely personal “He-you” repetition. This drips with the Reality that God yearns for you.
Take one of these five facets of this jewel, Zephaniah 3:17. Soak in it for at least five minutes. Linger and enjoy the goal of who God is and how He connects with His people.
“It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for more perfect consciousness of the Divine Presence” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God).
A single moment resting in His presence is infinitely valuable as we intentionally focus our awareness on Him, attuning ourselves to God Himself. This state is crucial if we are to feel vibrant, alive, filled with His presence on our journey. Then we perceive God and ourselves and people and our world with greater clarity. More like Jesus as He transforms His Bride from center to circumference.
Close your eyes and reflect in the presence of of the God who God yearns for more connection with you.
Do you truly believe that God is for you, even when your experiences from what is coming against you argues for the opposite? Who will you trust? Do you really believe that the gift of Jesus encompasses all else you need for this day? God does His part without fail. For my part, I intend to patiently persevere to trust Him more through an eager, almost happy-go-lucky offering of my spirit, heart and body in an ongoing obedience of faith as God’s good and perfect will for me.
“Bookend” your days with a time of reflection on God-rich passages. Begin with the first bookend, time first thing in the morning. End with the second bookend, time just before sleeping in His arms of love so our minds are set on Him.
Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).
Does what I have written strike you as a bit over the top? Is it difficult to fit this into daily life?
That’s because this Reality not meant to fit into our existing lives, but to change our lives to fit into His, even flooding the routine tasks life demands. Let’s return to our roots as we look again for clarity about God’s creation design. Cultivating enjoyment of God’s presence doesn’t mean I consciously converse every moment with Jesus. Yet I always know I’m surrounded by His love. He’s available for every need and question I have.
This blog has been adapted from my book, Cultivating Enjoyment of God’s Presence, available on Amazon.Com. This book expands on this in the first section of 5-chapters focused on this theme. The Appendix is chock full of practical spiritual exercises and an extended section of quotes from the masters like Brother Lawrence, Frank Laubauch, A.W. Tozer, Andrew Murray and others.