Jesus And Me

Jesus And Me

Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. –James 4:8

A couple of my buddies, Bonita and Angela, just got back from a girls’ getaway to the beach with several other women (my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail). For Angela, a widow and a single mom, this was her week to relax. But she wanted more than to simply leave behind her heavy responsibilities and walk on the beach. Bonita’s and Angela’s rooms shared a balcony overlooking the ocean. Through the sheer curtains Bonita could see Angela slip out onto the balcony before everyone else got up in the morning. Angela would put on her headphones and sing to the Lord along with her favorite praise music.

Angela has learned how to welcome and enjoy the presence of God. Bonita could see it and hear it through the curtains as Angela lifted up her arms singing to the Lord, loving him openly and passionately. “I began to look forward to watching her every morning,” Bonita told me. Angela told me her favorite day at the beach was the one she spent alone while everyone else went shopping. But she wasn’t really alone. “I went for a long walk on the beach, just Jesus and me,” she said with delight. “I felt his presence in the waves around my feet and in the sun shining down on me. And I found a place where no one was around where I could shout out loud, ‘Jesus, I love you!’ ”

The road to enjoying Jesus this way has not been an easy one for Angela. “It took me two years after Wes died before I was willing to say to Jesus, in the coldness and loneliness of my bed, ‘Jesus, I need you to make your presence known to me, to be a husband and companion to me, to satisfy me,’ ” she told me. And she admits it is awkward at times to speak out loud to God in the quietness of her room or to wait in silence for him to make his presence known. This is an awkwardness many of us have never been able to overcome. We haven’t been quiet enough or patient enough to allow God to meet us. Perhaps what is more deeply true is that we haven’t believed that being alone with Jesus will be intimate, intense, or invigorating enough. Are you willing to put Jesus to the test, to invite his presence into your loneliness and need, so you can discover for yourself that he will meet you?

Jesus, I love you, and I want to experience your presence in my life in a very real and natural way. Will you reach out for me as I reach out to you? Will you show me what it really means to enjoy your presence in my life?

DIGGING DEEPER