Do Not Put Forth your Hand (Can't touch this)

It is obvious to me in light of recent events that all of the emotions and thirst I feel right now are in due time.

As in, in God's timing. Not some sort of inevitable human enlightenment or conclusion. Ugh, the word enlightenment takes me back to four excruciating years of worldview. The class. That taught me little about how to deal with. The world. Views. All sorts of them. God. For me, just one of Him.

I know that. I believe that. And I have felt that.

There is no going back on that. But there is something purposefully distancing me from the feel-good version of God-- the one I create on Sunday mornings and in times of need. The one often used to explain away hate and permit judgement. I have no choice but to trust that that "something" is Yahweh. The Alpha and Omega. The jealous God. The righteous God. The God who is I am. Not when I ask Him to be, but always. The One who doesn't need me to articulate my requests to get them. The One who doesn't need me articulating the right things at the right time if my heart is going to be insincere. Because prayer, true intercession, is about laying my heart in front of the throne.

I don't think it's that I only focus on Him at certain times that He detests. If I were wholeheartedly coming before Him even irregularly, I believe He'd take it. Because you have to start somewhere and God desires to meet me where I am. So it's not that Sunday morning worship is useless. Sometimes, though, I just feel like I'm using it. To say "look, it hasn't been more than a week since I got before God and humbled myself." I use it to say "yes, that is when I really worshipped Him." To clarify, it's not to say it or defend myself to other people. It's to defend myself to me. And when I have to start defending myself to me, there's an issue there. If there was a way around that, I would have found it. But the more I deny that there is a problem and defend my half-hearted worship, the more frustrated I become. And the larger the issue grows. This coming out of denial, confronting the fact that I believe God but struggle with knowing Him is such a rude awakening. And so refreshing at the same time. Because I feel, finally, that God is working in the distance. Matter of a fact, I know He is. And being able to know that He is orchestrating recent happenings is huge. Something I had been sorely lacking.

It's really not that I doubt God. I see Him around me. In things that I could hardly chalk up to circumstance or conventional wisdom. He works in the small stuff and I see Him most easily in them. I see Him in the miniscule because I believe Him in the big picture.

But as far as where I fit into that picture? I guess that's where my doubt comes from. I doubt that I am really usable. I doubt that I am able to let Him change my heart. I feel unmoldable. I doubt my ability to explain Him. And when I feel distanced from Him, I doubt that He is working in me. I hate that I don't have answers for people I would love to give answers to. I doubt that my views have the power to change the world. me. my. i. don't.

God. Him. He. does.

I don't have to have all the answers to the world. And I sure as anything don't have to pretend that I do. I just have to remain sure that I worship a God who does.

It's weird to me that I am so quick to see God in the details, the mundane and yet that's where Satan ends up creeping in anyway. The doubt, the feeling of inadequacy, it builds. Until it's inescapable. Until it's all I can see when i go to lay my heart down. It's all I can think of as I go to worship. And it gets in the way of my actually giving my heart over.

It is still mine to give.

Satan can taunt, tease, laugh, distract, disturb. He has access. A lot of the time I open the door and invite him right on it for some tea. But He can not have. Then the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him." So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD (Job 1:12).

My heart yearns for the presence of the Lord. A place the devil clearly isn't hangin' out.

He can't touch this.