[9] The crowd pressed so closely to Jesus that he instructed his disciples to bring him a small boat to get into and keep from being crushed by the crowd. [10] For he had healed so many that the sick kept pushing forward just so they could touch Jesus. [11] And whenever a demon saw him, it would throw the person down at Jesus’ feet, screaming out, “You are the Son of God!”
Observation
How often do I press in on God for what I can get from him, not for who He is? People pressed in because they got healing, but they did not recognise who He was. It was what they could get from God that attracted them to Him. Yet the demons, those opposed to God, recognised who He was. They responded to who God is, not what they get from Him.
The problem with following God based on what I get is that this is such a shallow relationship that is shaky as soon as He doesn’t hand out the lollies I like. God is God, that alone demands from me my bended knee, my worship, my following. My relationship must firstly be based on my recognition that He is God, and His Godship demands from me my all. Just because God does not use His position to make this demand of me, does not mean that I don’t allow my recognition of who He is to make this demand of personal response.
When I recognise firstly that He is God, then my intelligence says “stop questioning His ways, for I am not God.” When my relationship is based on Him being God then I allow God to be God, I allow Him to determine what flows from His hands and I stop making demands for the lollies I like. I can see how ridiculous my demands are when I recognise He is God.
Who makes demands of the creator King of the universe? Who in their right mind would dictate ways to the all knowing God? Who would instruct the one who sits outside time of what should happen within time? When I recognise God is God, my relationship with Him is based on a solid footing and I stop being ridiculous.
Here is the challenge – God calls me his friend. He calls me his son. He calls me His beloved. This relational context changes the normal construct of the King/God and me model. I am invited to intimacy, I am invited to a level of conversation, I am invited into a relationship that does not prohibit my inappropriate outbursts. I love this about God, I love that He invites and delights in this relationship with me. But this creates the relational tension.
“Our father, who art in Heaven.” Here is the challenge, the contrast, and at times conflict, of my daddy God who is also God of Heaven. Living in the contrast and contradiction is the relationship God invites me into. I must be able to say “You are God,” can I have the lollies, but I think that “you are God” must be the foundation. Western culture has made God a personal God who works for me, rather than the creator God who is personal with me.
Application
I will shape my relationship with God on the foundation that He is God. I will flow in all the intimacy, love, grace and lollies of the relationship from this understanding. When I don’t understand, when I don’t get the flavour I want, I will revert back to He is God, and shape my response from this truth. From this basis I will enjoy ‘my father who art in Heaven.’
Response
Thank you for being so patient with me when I forget that you are God and treat you exclusively from the intimacy you allow and invite me into. Thank you for all the good things that flow from your hands, thank you for all the blessing of love, intimacy, grace and presence. Thank you that you don’t pull out the God card and demand I get in line, your kindness amazes me. All my tantrums, all my demands, they never move you from God responses, but you also never depart from being daddy. A blessed man knows God and lives intimately from this knowledge. I am a blessed man.
Meditation
Is my relationship with God balanced between the intimacy of Father God and the majesty of God who is in Heaven?
Do I sometimes treat God as – my personal God who works for me, rather than the creator God who is personal with me?
JOURNEY DEEPER
