Recognizing the Difference Between Being With God vs. Asking God to be With Me
Maturity as a Child of God: Moving Beyond My Point of View
Have you ever thought about the difference between being with God vs. Him being with you?
Is there a difference?
Does it matter, as long as you are together?
Recently, in a moment of exhaustion, straining to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I found myself asking God to please change my situation. To come into the middle of the chaos and turn it around.
First, let me clarify: this prayer wasn’t unbiblical. In the beginning, God stepped into chaos and brought Light and Life. Two thousand years ago, He stepped onto the earth in His Son, Jesus, to bring Light and Life. And He is still releasing Light and Life every day, all over the world, through His Spirit.
Many, many times the Spirit of God has entered into my darkness with His brilliant light. Into my sickness with His word of healing. Into my confusion with clarity and truth. Into my confession to release hope.
But, in this particular moment of exhaustion and prayer, I sensed Holy Spirit reminding me of another truth: Jehovah is the God who invites me to be with Him.
To take my focus off of what I see and feel and think I know.
To rise above the things of this earth.
To step over the threshold of His chambers.
To sit with Him and see from His perspective.
To follow Him, not ask Him to follow me.
As I pondered the Holy Spirit’s reminder, a thought came: Do I want deliverance from something or deliverance into Someone?
There’s a big difference between wanting God to meet my immediate need and leaning more fully into Him, no matter the lack or distress.
When God delivered the nation of Israel from Egypt, He entered into their slavery and led them out to freedom. Ultimately, however, He invited them into an intimate relationship of walking with Him. Following the cloud of His presence. Knowing Him as a loving Father who loves, provides, trains, and disciplines His children.
Sadly, most of those who came out of slavery wanted God to do things differently once they were on the other side of the Red Sea, safe from the Egyptian army. Many even longed to go back to being slaves in Egypt when freedom didn’t look like they expected. When the final test came in the form of walled cities and giants, only Joshua and Caleb embraced God’s invitation to continue walking with Him. Trusting. Expectant. Faithful.
Many centuries later, God came to earth in His Son, Jesus. Emmanuel. God with us.
During His ministry, Jesus went out into the highways and byways. He touched sinners and healed lepers and dined at the tax collector’s banquet. He searched out the lost sheep, knelt in the dirt with the poor, made the blind see and the adulteress clean.
At some point in each encounter, however, Jesus would extend an invitation: Come and follow Me.
Jesus came with a greater mission than to fix this world. He came to reconcile us to our Father. Redeemed sons and daughters of the one true God, filled with His Spirit, displaying His wisdom to the powers and principalities in the heavenly realms. One with the Trinity.
Not fearful. Not begging. Not wondering, Where is God? but understanding, I can stay with Him.
Again, to clarify: God is with us by His Spirit—drawing, loving, healing, and setting free. And I will continue to ask Him to step into the lives of those who do not know Him and those too weary to walk with Him.
But I believe there is also a stunning invitation extended to us as we mature and move forward as His children. He wants us to draw near to Him. To lean in, lean on, lean with Him in what He is doing. To be His disciples: following, serving, loving as we walk the path He chooses.
While God is intimately aware of my needs and has met me in very tangible ways, each moment is an opportunity to lean into the bigger reality that I can stay with Him, listening, learning, becoming whole.
How have you experienced God being with you?
How have you recognized that you were staying with Him?
Do you think there’s a difference?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.