Spiritual Warfare

I just looked at the dates on my blog and realized that I have only posted four times in the entire year of 2012. What a bad blogger I am! I knew I had been neglectful but hadn't realized just how much. I could probably come up with all kinds of excuses but the bottom line is that I don't blog just to be blogging. If I don't have something meaningful (or at least what I think is meaningful) to say, I don't write. And frankly, words with any meaning have been scarce for me so far this year.

I can't really give you a reason. I've not had a terrible year. I've not been overly stressed or, for that matter, overly busy. Busy, of course, but not tear-my-hair-out-meet-myself-coming-and-going busy. The fact of the matter is I've simply not been inspired...motivated...convicted...until today.

Today my heart is aching. Bleeding really. There are so many tragic, devastating, mind numbing situations going on with people I know. Co-workers with children whose lives have been forever changed because of freak accidents. A family member who is battling a permanent disability. Friends whose marriage is disintegrating. Children I am responsible for at school who are having to deal with incredibly tough home lives. I find my prayer time getting longer and longer as the list of people who desparately need intercessory prayer gets longer and longer.

And I wonder more and more every day why. Why doesn't God just fix each problem? Why doesn't He just intervene, perform a miracle, and move on?

Today, it hit me. Why doesn't He do what I think He should? Because that may not be what is best for that particular person or family. He may be working in their lives in ways I can't see or comprehend. He may have a much greater purpose in mind than my simple and finite brain can fathom. He sees the whole picture and not just the small piece. I am asking for my will to be done in their lives and not His because mine seemed far easier. Easy is rarely God's plan. Eternity is.

When I look back at the difficult times we have dealt with in our family, I can point to specific situations that absolutely and unequivocally changed our lives. Changed our family. Changed our outlook. Changed our relationship with God. What if God had listened to someone's prayer for us to make things easier? Where would we be?

Am I going to continue to pray for my friends and family? Of course. But I'm going to shift my emphasis from "fixing" the problem to spiritual growth through the problem. I am going to let my intercession become more focused on God's goals than my own.

Matthew 7:14 "But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few find it." (NLT)

Intimacy

 Intimacy. A word that Webster's defines as "marked by very close association, contact, or familiarity."

We can certainly love our children, parents, and friends but true intimacy is usually reserved for spouses or significant others. And I'm not talking just physical intimacy. I mean emotional, you-know-everything-about-me intimacy. I believe that God planned it that way. In fact, I believe that the relationship between Adam and Eve was patterned after the one He had with them before sin entered the world and spoiled it all. And God wholeheartedly desires to reestablish that closeness or else He wouldn't have sent Jesus.

Listen to the way David described his desire for this intimacy in Psalm 63:

"O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands."

If you were to change the perspective and pretend you were saying these words to your spouse, the relationship would be unmistakable. Go ahead. Read it again, only this time substitute God for someone you are very close to.

Did you hear the intimacy? Most of us find it much easier to relate these emotions to an earthly partnership but what would happen if we transferred these feelings to our heavenly association? Jesus desperately wants to be our friend. He says so in John 15:15:

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."

I was recently comforting a crying baby and was holding him up close to my face so I could talk softly to him. He eventually calmed down and I was able to put him down to continue playing. As I moved him away from my face, I realized that his tears were still on my cheek. What a perfect picture of the intimacy our God wants with us. He wants us to be so close that when we cry, we leave our tears on His face.

Now that's a relationship I can long for.