Rocky Road Devotions: When God is Close

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

The Lord is close to all who call on him, yes, to all who call on him in truth. He grants the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cries for help and rescues them. Psalm 145:18-19(NLT)

That God is powerful has never been in question during my adult years. My questioning about God has always been whether I would ever really know Him personally. Whether I was good enough for God to call me his friend.

When I was very young, I believed in God as a child believes…wide-eyed, full of expectation, and eager to please. As a teen I was a Prodigal, wandering in the far country, angry, and without faith. When I returned home to God’s fold as a young adult there were a lot of questions that hung-on and haunted me. Trying to have faith in Yahweh was a quagmire of wondering, full of unanswered questions;

· why is this not clear, and

· why is that silence from Heaven what I hear most?

· Why…if I’m one of His…does bad stuff happen to me?

My questions were selfish, but that’s what happens in the inner-place of the will. You can hear a zillion testimonies of other people’s faith experiences with God, and how their prayers were answered, but deep down what we long-for is a personal connection with God. We want to know He’s there; we want to feel His touch.

For some years the strongest desire of my heart and soul was to praise God…and really mean it. It’s hard to do that when life’s big questions challenge your faith as being less than genuine. You stand or sit in a church service and join in the smiles, tears and offering of praise through hymns, giving, and prayer…but, for some reason you feel like a hypocrite.

John Wesley had that experience. Wesley struggled in the same way Russell struggled with faith. From his journal we read that he questioned Peter Bohler how he can preach faith in God if he had no faith in God. Bohler’s response was: Preach faith until you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.[2] The view from this side of history, centuries later, Wesley’s struggle is a little faded. But it’s there in his journal, a record the preacher kept, unearthing all those questions and yearnings, the evidence of a soul, wracked with the overwhelming desire to know the living God personally, not second-hand, but up-close and personal!

The famous meeting of John Wesley’s soul with that living God, Jehovah, at Aldersgate church one cold night, was also recorded in Wesley’s Journal as the tipping-point in that personal faith Mr. Wesley experienced, and that which started a movement that swept through the entire world of personal holiness:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.[3]

I cannot say I have never had questions since the day God began placing faith in my heart; just the opposite, I have many questions, the answers which may have to wait until I ask Jesus face to face. But this one thing is true; the faith that is bedrock within me is because I took Christ on faith; I learned, as the Psalmist declared is true about God: He is close to those who call on Him…in truth.

“In truth” – nothing held back.

For You Today

If you struggle in this area, even occasionally…or if it is all day, every day…take heart, and take a lesson from David the Psalmist, John the Methodist, and Russell, a simple preacher…take all your questions to him; He’s got big shoulders, and just loves to hear from His children.