Too, too busy

Perhaps you’ve heard it, also. Something like, "I love you, but I’m too busy for you." The words are not always exactly the same, but the message is conveyed, regardless.

I got that message this morning, and found myself wanting to shy away from the feelings that came with it. I even said to the Lord that I didn’t want to go into that painful place, but I knew that He wanted to go there with me. I knew it was true, and when I said it, I knew something else: God understood.

He understood because He hears the same thing all the time. He hears, "I love You, but… I’ve got to make a living, or I’ve got to take care of the kids, or I’ve got to clean the house, or there is a cool program on TV that I don’t want to miss," or any number of other things. And just as it hurts me to hear that someone who claims to love me (and to a degree does, I know) believes that many, many other things are more important than a relationship with me, so it hurts Almighty God to hear that although we love Him, we’ve got far more important things to do than to connect intimately with Him.

Even our reasoning is similar. The message I get is, "You can make it on your own; you don’t really need me," and so we believe about God! He is, well, God. He doesn’t really need us. What can we give to Him that He doesn’t already have? What can we do for Him? We’re just people, after all. True, in one sense. But when you love someone, does it really matter what they do for you? Yes, there are people who love only those who do things for them, but I’m talking here about a heart connection. When you’ve been gripped by affection for some particular person, you want to know more than just that they’ve been thinking of you (while they were busy doing): you want to know them. You want them to know you.

As soon as I recognized that I felt a pain that God Himself shared, the knowledge of that full understanding completely removed my pain. That seemed strange to me, I confess. I recognized, also, something else.

One of our reasons for not whole-heartedly pursuing relationship with God is that we think we’re still living under the curse. We think that the only way we’ll eat is by the sweat of our brow. But, hold on. Jesus pursued relationship with his Father, saw what his Father was doing, and heard what his Father was saying. Then he went out and did likewise. He went into storms and spoke peace; he went into sickness and spoke wholeness; he went into lack and spoke thanks and then fed thousands with a few little loaves and fishes.

The blessing is greater than the curse, and it is for those who love Him.

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