Monthly Archives: May 2019

Asking God Hard Questions

God has invited us into a very personal relationship with Him. In truth, God not only invited us into a relationship with Him through Jesus, but He planned and prepared ways that we can deepen our fellowship with Him. One way to deepen our relationship with God is through prayer.  

Prayer deepens our fellowship and trust in God because we can literally pour out our hearts to God in prayer. We can become very personal with God and express our deepest fears, desires, hurts, doubts, and confusions.

Our prayer life will depend on our view of God. If I view God as distant and uninvolved in my life, or as a punitive task master, then I will miss out on knowing God for who He is. I will not trust Him, and will not be vulnerable and open with Him. I will not have genuine intimacy with Him, because I will hold back my true thoughts, feelings and questions.

In the Psalms we see people who trusted God and opened their heart to Him.  They loudly and boldly proclaimed their feelings and wrestled with tough questions before the throne of God.

Questions Reveal Intimacy
As we read through the Psalms, we see that the psalmists asked some, what I would call, “gutsy” questions. Yet these questions reveal an understanding of God and of a personal relationship with God. Such questions show vulnerability, an ability to pour out our weaknesses, fears, confusion, and our pain to God.

Such questions spring from a faith in God, a trust in His openness to us; His care and concern for us, and a belief in His involvement in each one of our lives.

These questions are so emotionally revealing that at times they sound more like a demand for an answer, and sometimes are just that. To me these questions imply that only someone who knows God deeply can risk being that intimate.

Urgent Intimate Questions
Look at some of the questions that the psalmists felt at ease asking God.

In Psalm 13:1-2, David, in his agonizing, asks these questions of God.
“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?  How long will my enemy triumph over me?”

In two relatively short verses David puts forth 5 questions that reveal the David’s trust in a God who desires and accepts intimacy.

David is asking God –Yahweh, the great almighty eternal God, who is the source of all life and who has all power, “How long is this difficult situation going to go on? How long will You, God let this happen?” This is genuine openness.

David is so vulnerable that in the next question he tells God, “I feel like you have forgotten me. You have gone off and left me in this difficulty alone. Where are You my God, my Friend, my Helper?”

David gets gut level open, telling God his feelings, and what he suspects God is doing. We see these hear felt expressions these questions: “Are You hiding Your face from me? Have You turned Your back on me? Do you not want to be in a relationship with me?”

David is ratcheting up in his vulnerable faith and is telling God that this difficulty is too heavy for him to bear alone. It is on his mind day and night. He is sick with sorrow about this. He is wrestling about what to do and why it is happening. Perhaps David is sleepless and restless and pacing and calling out to God, being vulnerable and asking question after question demanding an answer.

The questions David asks God in Psalm 13 are an example of intimacy with God.

Other Questions
As we read through the Psalms we see many examples of such intimacy revealed in questions. Read and reflect on the intimacy with God that these questions imply.

  • “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” Psalm 10:1
  • “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever?  Has his promise failed for all time?  Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” Psalm 77:7-9
  • “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” Psalm 22:1-2 (A Messianic saying, yet a question David asked).
  • “… save me because of your unfailing love.  Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave?” Psalm 6:4b-5

It is important to not that many of the things I express to God in intimate conversation may not be right. Intimacy involves an openness with God about what we are thinking and feeling with the understanding that God accepts our openness, even when our conclusions are not correct.  At times I have thoughts about God and what He is doing, but my perceptions and understandings may not be grounded in the truth about God and His character, I express these misunderstandings and feelings to God, and God understands and accepts us. This is intimacy.
God will lead us into right thinking, but does not turn away from us. He welcomes intimacy with us.

Reflection: What do you ask God?
As I read through these psalms and look at the events in the psalmist’s life I am drawn to the intimacy that the psalmist had with God.

  • Do I trust God enough to ask my own very vulnerable questions?
  • Do I dare to be that personal with God? It seems to me that God is calling us to this very intimacy.

I encourage you to read through the Psalms and look at the questions the psalmists asked. Begin to become more personal with God, tell Him your true feelings no matter how wrong or ugly they seem, and ask God the questions you have on your heart.

 

 

Language of Intimacy

Although the term “intimacy with God” has become a buzz word in many religious circles, it is a true and real experience that God has opened to us. Jesus references this intimacy several times in passages such as John 14:23 and Rev. 3:20.

  • “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. Then my Father will love him, and We will go to him and make our home within him.”  John 14:23 ISV
  • “Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with Me.” Rev. 3:20 NET

What can be more intimate than God making His home in us; or God having dinner time fellowship with us? The image of Jesus coming into out home to sit down and have a meal with us is very personal. Think of the deep conversations you have had with friends around a table sharing a meal or having a cup of coffee.

Intimacy implies a relationship so close, so personal, and so vulnerable that the two people are as one. It is like a “melding into God;” or like “lodging” within God.

The expression “intimacy” when applied to God and us seems too personal, too private, well, almost too intimate to believe. Yet that is exactly what God calls us into. I marvel at the thought of having a personal relationship with God, the God who creates and sustains all life.

Jesus – Came from Intimacy
Jesus is the perfect example of an intimate relationship with God. John 1:18 tells us that Jesus dwelt in the “bosom of the Father.”  

  • “No one has ever yet seen God. The only begotten God, the One being in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him” John 1:18 (BSB)

“Bosom” is a term of intimacy. Being “in the bosom” is up close and personal, so close it is like being melded with another. It is being lodged next to and held close to the heart. Jesus lived in the bosom of the Father, the place where deep love and intimate truths are exchanged.

This thought of “bosom intimacy” is revealed in other words of Jesus.

  • “I and the Father are one.” John 10:30
  • “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?” John 14:9b-10a
  • “…that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent Me.” John 17:21

Jesus’ intimacy, His “bosom” relationship with God made Him able to reveal God’s will and character to us. His “bosom” closeness made Him able to trust the Father, as well as surrender to and become obedient to the will of the Father.

Intimacy Sounds Like . . . 
A good place to learn about this intimate relationship is in the Psalms. King David is described in the scriptures as a man after God’s own heart, a good example of a “bosom” friendship.  The Psalms, those of David and others, open a portal for us to view intimacy with God. We will hear words like: longing, yearning, fainting, languishing, gazing, hungering, thirsting, panting and more. If we are seeking intimacy with God or trying to express our feelings for God, we can adopt some of these phrases/

One thing that is striking and revealing in David’s writings is the language he uses to express his feelings for God. Let’s look at some these expressions.

Longing
I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands. I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails; do not hide Your face from me, or I will become like those who go down to the pit. Ps. 143:5-7 (NASB)

David speaks intimately to God, boldly declaring his longing for God, and almost demanding that God pay attention to him.

The word for “long” in this passage is “ayeph.” It means “to long for.” This is not just an emotional “hankering” for God, but rather it is a deep internal soul yearning that involves mind, heart and body. The definition implies a physical longing that is akin to fainting with exhaustion; languishing from the toil of earnestly seeking for the closeness of God; a longing for God to insert Himself in David’s life; a longing to hear from God and see Him act in his life.

This longing is so physical that it involves “stretching his hands out” for God, perhaps like a child reaching up to be held close, comforted and  loved. Also, David longs so intensely that his “spirit fails” if God does not respond.

In Psalm 84:2 David expresses this same type of longing: “My soul longs yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.”

Even though the word “long” in this verse comes from a different Hebrew word it implies a longing that is a pining after the presence of God, and it includes a physical effect such as turning pale from the effort of longing. Being in a bosom relationship with God produces a physical response of the heart and flesh singing.

Thirsting and Panting
David’s words in Psalm 42:1-2 describe what intimacy with God sounds like and looks like.

  •  “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

Here, we see that intimacy pants and thirsts for God. The term pant (arag) is rich with meaning. It expresses a strong desire; a bent, or intent to be with God as a deer would search out water. Also, it is defined as a breathe or a deep sigh, perhaps like a deer bleating or crying out after water. I have to ask myself: Do I cry out for more closeness with God? Do I eagerly anticipate being in His presence? Do I practice His presence daily, hourly in my life?

In studying about this, I found that deer never roam far from a water source, even if it is but a puddle on the ground. It is interesting that David uses this imagery to describe his connection to God. In other words even though he has a relationship with God and is close with Him, David desires and seeks to be connected to God more and more deeply. Does this describe my/your relationship with God? Do I/you stay close to Him? What does that look like in my life?

Consumed in God
There are numerous expressions of intimacy in the Psalms. Intimacy with God cannot just be a buzz word or a hot topic in our “spiritual” conversations. It is our actual living relationship with God that involves our whole life, our whole attention, not just our “practice” of religion, or our academic study of the Bible.

Take time to read through the psalms and look for the consuming passion of the psalmist’s intimacy with God. Here are a few:

  • “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:25 NIV (Asaph)
  • “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord  all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” Ps. 27:4 NIV
  • “For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.” Ps. 84:10
  • “Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.” Ps. 26:8

Reflect on Your Intimacy
As I study about the intimacy revealed in the Psalms, I cannot help but reflect on my relationship with God.

  • Am I living in my relationship with God, “supping” with Him, or merely practicing a nice little religion that makes me feel spiritually secure?
  • Do the words longing, yearning, hungering, thirsting, or languishing for, describe my relationship with God? Do I seek to take time to “gaze” on the beauty of the Lord?
  • Do I seek His face? Am I consumed in Him or am I too preoccupied with my own identity and too involved in my own pursuits and “standing” among men? What words describe my intimacy with God?
  • Am I praying and asking God to help me have the singular desire and goal of living with Him forever; of gazing on the beauty of the LORD?  Or, am I so distracted by the busy-ness of life that this is no longer my heart?

These are questions that only you and I can answer. My prayer is that we will take time to reflect on these questions, answer them and then seek God’s help to have such intimacy with God.