The important stuff

As I write this, it is less than a month till Christmas, amazingly enough.

I'm struck by the fact that God is so near at this time of the year, seemingly.

But then I read in Psalm 139, God, investigate my life, get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back, I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too -- your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful -- I can't take it all in.

Is that the way we live? Do we stay in the essence of God? I'm afraid God never moves, we do. We seem, certainly I do, to ebb and flow, and though I should be flowing, I'm ebbing right now, I'm afraid.

Luckily, the most important part of the verse isn't about where WE are, but where God is. The verse says, YOU know when I leave and when I get back. I leave is the key.

God knows us. When we have given ourselves over to Him, he knows when we will ebb and He's there for those moments when we ask for forgiveness and mean it and the relationship that He wants with us more than anything is restored to its completeness.

See, no matter what we think about those infernal rules in scripture and what we've been taught about them, God isn't about rule-keeping. We share in that, you know, He and I. He's about relationship, and the relationship He wants more than any is with, uh, you. Oh, and me, too, but mostly with you at the moment. He love us so much that He took a period of time to give us 1/3 of the circle of relationship He has with His Son and HIs Spirit to give us Jesus. And those scars? Jesus wears them to remind us that He truly did care. There was no giving for a moment and taking it away. That gift of grace was forever.

Psalm 139 continues: Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my Mother's womb. I thank you, High God -- you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made; I worship in adoration -- what creation.

Take some time over then next four weeks or so to do you best to "worship in adoration." When you go to church, don't go to be going, go to wor-ship. Let Him know you want to care, really care, about your relationship with Him, with Them. Make this season be about what Jesus did, not about what you bought.