There is No Distance, Only Distractions

One of the greatest lessons on my devotional journey with Jesus is that there is no distance between us! I’m not living in the merit system of do’s and don’ts that regulate His nearness to me. I’m no longer afraid that if I’m not doing as well as I would like, that somehow He has moved on to someone else or withdrawn His love for me.

I’m discovering just the opposite. He is forever married to the backslider, and in my weakness, His strength is perfected. Immediately, I can feel the religious quake and hear the conscientious objection of someone saying that it sounds like I’m giving an excuse to sin, and as Paul the Apostle would say, “certainly not”. Holiness is still the standard, but what has changed for me is that it’s not my standard that makes me holy. It’s Jesus and His jealousy for me that creates the standard. Following rules never helped me, but falling in love has transformed me. In the simplest terms, holiness is about who I belong to, and that has changed my standards.

Anyone who says that overemphasizing the message of grace is just an allowance of sin sounds like someone who has never truly been in love. Because the grace that I am talking about is a grace that overwhelms the core nature of your being until you find your heart entwined with His and desires integrated to His. This isn’t a message of independence, but one of total dependence.

I’ve learned and am learning that you cannot overemphasize the love of God nor the kindness He extends that leads to the new pathways of believing.

If holiness (the exclusive belonging to another) has done anything for me, it’s refined my appetites to crave more of the beauty that I am beholding in Jesus. Holiness has caused me to see Christ and Him crucified when I see the broken world around me. It causes me to no longer see the broken ashes, but I see the love that caused a world to be reconciled to Himself.

My aim is not to fix the problems of this world, but to stare into the beauty of the one who laid His life down for His friends. That kind of unrelenting love is enough to change me and pour out on each neighbor that I cross paths with.

Maybe the reason that we don’t see change as much as we would like is that we are afraid to admit that we let our love get distracted. We aim at storms that cause us to become weary, confused, and frustrated. Ultimately, we are like those who were on the boat with Jesus, thinking that they were going to drown in the storm that was battering their ship. But Jesus wasn’t worried about the storm; confidently enough, he thought it was a good time for a nap. Storms are meant to distract you from the peace that is already present on your ship.

My prayer is that we not get distracted and aim at the million tragedies that could be silenced by one revelation, that He is here and he cares. You move your aim from the storms to His nearness. One of the lessons that I believe the Holy Spirit teaches me daily is that distractions are nothing more than a negotiation of desires. We negotiate the good and the bad based upon the storm and not His union with us.

This revelation isn’t just ignoring the problem; it’s magnifying the answer.

CHRISTUS VICTOR!

The problem today is that we have a Christian world that wants to negotiate Christ instead of surrendering to Him. The distraction gives the illusion of distance from the love of God. My responsibility is to be holy, completely given to Him until the grace He gives me fuels my love for everything that still appears to be broken. Until the desert of one’s existence begins to blossom like spring rose.

I realize that to many, this seems like a fairy tale. But to me, it is the violence and vengeance of God’s love. He won’t hold back until every lie of separation gets destroyed because of His jealousy over you. Except this violence and vengeance doesn’t end in my destruction, it ends in a joy that is unspeakable but full of glory.

There is no distance, only distraction.