Letters from God

Sometimes I like to synthesize my devotions and Scripture reading into “letters” from God. It helps me internalize what God is teaching me.

Good Morning,

           God here. You seem depressed and worn out, and you have only been awake for an hour today.  As I have told you before, please, come to me and I will give you rest (Mt. 11:28). I am always astounded by how quickly you can begin to freak out and forget that I am here with you.  Every day I watch you wake up. Often, I hear your thoughts of hopelessness about facing another day, and then I see you pull yourself out of bed. For a few seconds you seem hopeful, sometimes even happy—mostly that you finally got yourself out of the bed. What, many times, happens next always grieves Me. You sit up, and I watch your facial expression.  You take on that now-very-familiar look of ominous doom and fear—yes, your thoughts of everything you must do today, your perception of its seeming impossibility because of past failures, have just come crashing out of the fog of sleep to the forefront of your awareness.  I watch as your back and neck muscles become tense and your eyes become dull, the earlier light of hope snuffed out.

            Then your typical expression of guilt and drudgery wash over you. Your thoughts are dryly humorous to me, “Oh yeah, I guess I better do some devo's or else I’m really going to bomb today.” The way you think the words makes it sound that the task is terribly burdensome to you—a duty, or a cross that you must bear for a short time before getting to the important stuff. You fumble to the kitchen and pour yourself some coffee.  Then you settle down in your chair and open your Bible. You read until you feel you have appeased Me and have put in your time. Then you feel guilty for compartmentalizing Me, so you utter a prayer for forgiveness and try to appease Me with an “acceptable” amount of time.  Your prayers are filled mostly with worried ramblings and spilling your biggest fears of the day.  You intend to give praises and seek My peace, but, before you get to that part of your prayer, you are almost always distracted by the time, or life. 

So often I see you walk away from our time more freaked out and weary than when you began. Many a morning you bring me your box of burdens and pull each one out, describe it in great detail, and then put it back in the box.  You always end up surprising yourself with how many burdens you have, and, often, you rediscover old burdens you had forgotten at the bottom of the box. At that point, you are near panic.  Then the distraction comes, or you realize you “served your time” for the morning. Quickly, you utter your “Amen”, grab your box, and run off to toil away. 

            There I am, left still standing with My arms outstretched, ready to take those burdens in one arm and comfort you in the other (Is. 51:3). Instead of trusting Me with your box and receiving My comfort, you leave Me to just sit and watch.  I watch as you try to carry your burdens and try to tackle all these things you feel that you MUST get done or that cloud of doom will overtake you again. I really do hate this game that you play. It only hurts you—which hurts Me.  In case you didn't notice, I really do not enjoy watching you torment yourself. I do not like seeing you feel miserable and hopeless all the time--and for no cause.

            You see, when I originally created mankind, it was for My pleasure. I created you to have a relationship with Me and to love Me. So often you are bogged down by work. I gave you work to allow you to grow closer to Me through identification (Gen 1:26, 2:15).  You see, even I, the God of the universe, work. Work is meant to be fulfilling and good. Work itself is not the issue that weighs you down. What weighs you down is your fear of intimacy with Me and sin.

The intimacy problem started long ago. In Genesis, after my humans, Adam and Eve, brought wisdom of good and evil to mankind through sin, shame and guilt also entered the world. Now work could no longer be as sweet (Gen. 3:7).  Now work became more difficult and painful (Gen 3:16-19). Now, without My assistance and blessing, all work became a burden too heavy to bear (Ps. 127).

But, here is the deal: not only did sin make work harder, it also created the ability to reject Me, the only One who could help. After sin entered, My creation built a wall in our relationship. I created man to know Me intimately and to be known intimately by Me.  Before sin, there was no hiding, no secrets (Gen. 2:25).  The beauty of intimate love is the knowledge that you are fully known and still fully loved. The shame that Adam and Eve immediately experienced from realizing their nakedness was their awareness and fear of rejection based upon that intimacy.  Before, there was nothing to be ashamed of. Now they feared the consequences of continued intimacy and, therefore, chose to no longer be intimate (Gen 3:7-11).

With sin in the world, man began trying to do things alone, and to hide their hearts from Me, and to reject intimacy. My intimate knowledge of the contents of man’s hearts was not changed by sin, but the joy and sweetness of reciprocated, volunteered intimacy and love—that was torn from Me.  I created You humans out of my love, but You rejected Me.

            It was at this point that appeasement began. Empty words and sacrifices I do not desire; instead, I desire a contrite heart (Ps. 51:16-19). If I get only words and sacrifices that are fake and do not fully and accurately reflect your heart’s condition—they are meaningless and worthless to me (Ps 51:16, Is. 1:11-13). I made dirt out of nothing and man out of dirt. I do not NEED anything.  I am God. However, the one thing that I desire is what I can only obtain by your volunteering it—your love and adoration. Your heart and worship are the only acceptable gifts.   

            Cain didn't understand this. He offered me sacrifices in the same way that you offer them. He gave Me his vegetables, but I would not accept the sacrifice (Gen 4:4-5). Often, you humans focus on the idea that I rejected it because he didn’t give his BEST vegetables to Me, and Abel gave Me his BEST lamb. Do you think that I really care about vegetables and sheep? (Is. 1:11) You miss it. It wasn’t the sacrifice alone that caused My rejection of it.  It was his heart. Abel’s sacrifice paralleled the offering of his heart. Caine’s sacrifice was a lie, because his heart was not given to Me. His sacrifice was false (Is. 1:13).  How can one accept a pretend sacrifice?

            You see, that is the problem. The whole Old Testament reflects this struggle that was introduced—the struggle for man's heart.  I did everything for Israel.  I blessed them and saved their butts countless times, yet they still constantly rejected Me with their hearts (Ps. 78).  Hearts love—it is just a fact. Though the heart rejects loving Me, it does not stop loving. It will love other things, people, or self.   

            Put yourself in My position for a moment.  You are My bride (Is. 54:5).  How would you feel if you married someone and they refused to be intimate with you? Picture a spouse that never enjoys talking with you or spending time with you.  The only time your spouse comes to you is when they feel guilty, have no other choice, or want to use you to get something.  During the few, short times your spouse does talk with or spend time with you, you know that their heart is thinking about something or someone else. You give them everything, trying to win their love (Rom. 8:31-32). You watch your spouse and you know things are going on in their mind or life, but they refuse to tell you or let you know what’s going on. Imagine the agony of knowing EXACTLY what’s going on and them still refusing to talk to you about it.

Imagine that your spouse is in the middle of an affair and then says to you, “Here’s a card, happy anniversary, I love you so much, honey. We're good now, right? Now give me ___, so I can get back to my deadbeat lover” (Ez. 16:15-20). That isn’t an acceptable sacrifice. That’s a slap in the face.

            So, My child, do you see why you are so often in such turmoil? You have been refusing intimacy and your heart has been far from Me. When you do talk to Me, you do it because you feel you have to.  You give Me lip sacrifice and tell Me what you think I want to hear, but your heart does not echo the sentiments. You have made your relationship with Me a drudgery rather than a joyful endeavor. Yes, you are stressed.  I know it all. I’m here.  I WANT to carry the weight of your burdens and fears. I want you to entrust them to Me.  I am insulted by your refusal of my chivalry. Let ME be your God and love. Let ME be your deliverer, your protector, your comforter. You are being ridiculous when you try to be your own deliverer, and comforter.  Give ME verbally and heartily all your insecurities, your weakness, your uglies, so that I can remind you that I saved you with full knowledge of it all (Ez. 16:8).

           Do not try to hide from Me. Hold nothing from Me. I already know it all. In human relationships, people may fear rejection when sharing intimate things.  Do not fear MY rejection. Nothing you can say or acknowledge to Me will free Me to reject you. You see, you are in a COVENANT with Me—not a contract. Salvation is saying “I do,” to the ultimate marriage vow (Hosea 2:19-20). You have chosen to die to independence, separation and loneliness and accept the marriage offer that My son offered with His blood. 

When one is married to Me, I cannot reject him. Contracts have conditions. If one party does not follow through on their end, the other party is no longer obligated to hold to the contract.  Covenants are promises forever, made by two parties. A covenant is NOT an agreement. If I promise to do something and you promise to do something, does your breaking of your promise allow me to break MY promise?  No. Breaking a promise or vow is sin.  I cannot sin.  I promised to love you with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). Your unfaithfulness does not free Me from this promise.  You can reject me, but I will NEVER reject you. So, there is no reason not to be intimate and give Me your whole heart—you can trust Me.

            Do not continue to make Me watch you reject my love. Do not offer Me more fake sacrifices and lip service. I desire your honesty, love, and affection.  Stop hiding your true heart from Me. Become intimate with your Maker. We could be so happy together. 

LOVE ME and RECEIVE MY LOVE.

KNOW ME and BE KNOWN.

           

            -God