Sarah Lang

Intimacy

(I have to give credit to my professor, Emmanuel Itapson, for inspiring this blog.)

Is it possible to believe in a God who is not far off, but is near?  Isn’t that what Genesis addresses right off the bat?  God created.  When God created, it was good.  God spoke and brought life into being.  In Genesis 1, God said, “Let there be…”  And you know what?  There was.  “And God saw that it was good.”  God spoke and creation came into existence.  The universe was not a series of random circumstances.  We are not the product of a series of random accidental events with no purpose to life.  No!  God created.  People are formed in the image of God.  “…in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27).  We are created to reflect the kindness, compassion, love, faithfulness, strength, and beauty of God.  We have the potential to reflect God’s character.  That’s where our value is based; on no other virtue is our worth found.

The startling thing between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is the pace.  Genesis 2 slows and God becomes a personal God.  Instead of speaking, God bends down in the dirt and forms people, crafting with his own hand, breathing breath into us, and giving us life.  What care and intimacy is shown through that act!  When God created people, God came down on bended knee and played in the mud, fashioning us personally and intimately.  Can you imagine it … Creator of the universe forming and breathing the breath of life into us?  Now, not only is creation good, but very good (1:31).  No distant God exists. 

Whenever feeling like God is far off, consider Genesis 2.  God came down and played in the dirt.  What a picture of intimacy, love and care.  God is not far off, the Lord is much closer than we realize.  Sometime in the pace of the day, stop and contemplate the picture of God Genesis 2 paints, and relish in God’s care.

Dance

Amidst the clamor and din of our daily lives, we scarcely notice God’s pulse intertwined in our daily lives.  Imperceptibly to us, God beckons us to slow down and tune into him.   His voice never ceases, only waits for us to respond.  Our attention diverts as we work to feel successful, important, and relevant.  We think human success fills our hearts.  Instead, we need to first chase after God’s heart. 

 

How often do we dance for others what we perceive they want to receive?  We dress up, add, flourish, and embellish the dance, secretly craving other’s approval.  When the praise is dished out, the leaps become higher and longer.  But at the end of the day, we feel exhausted and empty.

 

God places this dance within us, but too often we add to it.  He invites us to strip it down, to dance barefoot, to remove the decorative slippers, and the fancy garment.  “Stop striving!” God beckons.  “Untie your hair and dance the dance I have placed in your heart."  Plain and simple.

 

Striving for other's approval leaves us miserable and unnourished.  We may think we’ve risen above dancing for others, but then a tendril sneaks in and trips us.  Author Sue Kidd reflects, “No matter how many ‘badges of love’ you collect, they are never enough because they are empty of real nourishment and cannot seem to feed the hunger gnawing deep inside.  So you keep doing more, working a little harder….  Despite our ‘head-knowledge’ that God loves us just as we are, there is usually some sneaking notion curdling way down inside that we will be loved best by God when we are doing the right things and achieving for His kingdom.”

 

We have grown accustomed to the pervasive message that acceptance and love come as a result of what we do and accomplish.  “To be loved, you must be lovable.”  Conditions hang on human love to some degree or another.  Internalizing this message sets us on a rat’s race of approval ratings.  Our value then vacillates depending on our performance in the eyes of people.  Up one day, down another.  Instead we must fight to see our never-changing value as beloved children of our extravagant, love-giving God. 

 

Nothing we do can make God love us less or more.  To hear it is one thing, to believe it in the depths of your heart is quite another matter.  C.S. Lewis notes, “How difficult it is to receive, and to go on receiving … a love that does not depend on our own attraction.  We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness, usefulness.  The first hint that anyone is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible shock.”

 

When we dance only as a response to the song placed in our hearts by the Lord, we become centered.  The extravagance falls away as does the striving for others’ approval.  We are to seek first God's Kingdom.  (Matt. 6:33). 

 

Opening ourselves to God makes us vulnerable, but it is in those moments of solitude with God that we consent to God’s transformation and healing.  Isn’t that what our souls crave – to be known fully yet loved for the very person we are?  We are safe in God’s presence to step out from the pretenses we create.

 

The defenses we hide behind become so interwoven into our identity, we scarcely know where our real self ends and our false self begins.  God is already aware of our short-comings and sin.  Why hide?  Becoming aware of our self-deception is the starting point for God to work and transform what we’ve so long been trying to fix for all those years.  An easier and freer way exists and that begins and ends in our identity in Christ.  Slow down, get quiet and listen for God’s pulse.  God’s heart is beating for you.