As a worship
pastor who spends much of my time seeking ways to help others discover and
express intimacy with God, I have had
no shortage of personal experiences from which to draw my own beliefs about
such matters. That He has left me His
Word as the compass and authority for my life would be gift enough. But He is
not limited to its pages. At times, He
meets me through the words of a hymn or poem, viewing a stunning work of art,
or listening to a symphony. Often, He pulls back the curtain and shows off some
of His amazing handiwork in nature when I am not even looking for it. But the revelations of greatest impact that
have made me want to know Him more have actually been in listening to His still
small voice. No, I’m not talking about
“voice-s”, lest you begin worrying that the porchlight’s on but nobody’s
home. I am referring to those quiet, inner spirit kind of nudgings that God
give us through His Spirit, that actually comfort, exhort, and in some cases direct us. Jesus himself said in John 10: “My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and
they follow Me.”
If God
desires intimacy with me, surely it is a living, active, and current thing. While much of my knowledge of Him comes from
His Word, and all subsequent “leadings” must agree with that revelation, our
relationship is not limited to that
collection of family history and love letters.
In other words, He still wants to communicate with me moment by
moment…by His Spirit. But this form of
communication takes time to develop. Like
any intimate relationship, time is of the essence.
Describing
what he calls “The Cycle of Intimacy,” Wayne Gordon, a pastor of an outreach
ministry in urban Chicago says this: “Knowing
God is a process that can no more be exhausted than the exploration of the
universe. There is always another
blazing aspect to discover in God.” He
speaks of the cycle of intimacy with God as outlined in John 14:23: ‘If anyone loves me, He will obey my
teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home
with him.’”
Here, then,
is the cycle:
1) the more we get to know God personally, scripturally, as
He really is, the
more we will fall in love with Him.
2) The more we fall in love with Him, the more we will want
to hear His voice, to
please Him with our lives, and surrender more of
ourselves to His love and
power.
3) The more we walk in obedience, the more God will make
Himself known to us
and manifest His presence in our
lives.
Notice I
didn’t say, the more we obey, the more He will love us. That is simply not possible, for God is love.
But with listening and obeying will come intimacy…intimacy with the living God.
While I
could share vast numbers of examples in my life where my response to God’s
voice was all too passive and impotent, I do recall learning a valuable lesson
from God about this cycle of intimacy when I encountered a man named Bert. Bert was a crusty old curmudgeon I happened
to be visiting in the hospital several years ago in Chicago. I was serving a church there as the pastor’s
assistant, and as luck would have it, when the pastor left town things often
happened that I was not equipped to handle.
Not in the flesh, anyway. It so
happens that the year before this visit, I had officiated at the funeral of
Bert’s wife, who had died, sure enough, the minute the pastor left town. Now a year later, I was called to his bedside
by his daughter, who, knowing he was near death, asked that I come pray for
him.
Bert was not
a believer, mind you, at least not to my knowledge. He wasn’t a church go-er, much less a member,
not of our church or any other. He
wasn’t even a nice man. He had few
friends, his family had all but disowned him, and he even once had told me he
wanted to kill the doctors who he blamed for his wife’s death. As I walked into his room that afternoon, I
was struck by my utter lack of qualifications to help this situation or bring
any comfort to anyone. I was also struck
by the fact that there was no one there to comfort, for there lay Bert…alone,
in a coma, the death rattle from his advanced emphysema growing increasingly
slower and weaker.
And then it
happened. As clearly as anything has
ever been communicated to me, God revealed to me that Bert was not beyond
redemption, that before he slipped into eternity he needed to experience God’s
unconditional favor, and that he had sent me to be the messenger. But I would not get off with merely reading
aloud a few scriptures. No, the Lord
wanted me to literally get up on Bert’s bed and hold him in my arms and just
say over and over, God loves you, Bert, He will forgive you, Bert. Trust Jesus, Bert.
Of course,
then the dialogue began, “God! What if
someone walks in? Or worse yet, what if
Bert wakes up?!?” Despite the protests,
I knew what I had to do. As I lay there
hugging and loving this crusty, rattling old man, I learned a new depth of
God’s unconditional love for me, for all of mankind. If His pursuit of me, of us is that strong, that He will send
someone to our deathbed so that we might know and experience His embrace to the end, what manner of love is this?
In my
experience with Bert, loving God merely meant taking the risk of looking a
little silly. But when I laid him to
rest three days later before a grand total of six mourners, I longed for more
opportunities to experience this wonderful God.
Through His Spirit, God had revealed Himself to me in a way that caused
me to love Him more and want to go deeper with Him.
“Brothers
and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies (all that you are and
have—every faculty you possess) as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not let the world around you “squeeze you into its mold,” but rather
be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then (and only then), you will be able to test and approve what God’s
will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
tad
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