How Should We Come to God?

From the very beginning, man was designed for fellowship -- communion -- with God.  God blew His own breath--ruah-- into Adam's nostrils so that we would share one Spirit with the Father-Creator.  When we enter into communion -- sharing the same spirit -- with Satan, we begin to distance ourselves from God.  We have trouble seeing eye-to-eye with Him, because we want our independence:  You shall be as gods.

What we are created for, however, is to enter the joyous life of the Trinity.  It is clear that man is designed for relationship, for unity and partnership with others.  Adam's loneliness in the Garden of Paradise is telling -- if we have the whole world and no one with whom to share it, we are lonely and unsatisfied.  But it is our relationship with God that ultimately determines all of our other relationships: He who finds a faithful wife finds a gift from the Lord.  This is why Satan works so hard at destroying our relationship with God.  If we are distanced from God, we are also alienated and isolated from the world around us and from other people.  Cain's cry to the Lord is revealing:  My punishment is more than I can bear.  Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will want to kill me (Gen.4:13-14).

In other words, without God, Cain had nothing else; no other relationships would satisfy him.  We were designed to sit in the place of the Second Person of the Trinity, in His same relationship with the Father and the Spirit.  That is what we were made for -- to be the sons of God, in whom He is well -pleased:  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him (Eph. 1:3-4)....for the adoption as sons and co-heirs with Christ.

How, then, do we come to God again and take our rightful place with Jesus in the life-exchange of love and joy in the Trinity?  Certainly not through a system of beliefs and principles -- although theology does help us tremendously in comprehending God's plan for us.  Rather, we come to God in faith -- leaning into Him with confidence in His goodness.  We come not with faith in our own goodness, but in His.  I love the story of Mary Magdalene; she dared to wash the feet of Jesus because she knew that His goodness would not embarrass her or reject her.  She had no faith in herself as a good person, as the Pharisees who rejected her believed in their own worthiness before God.  But she believed that she would be received just as she was, sins and all.

God invites us to come to Him in brutal honesty and vulnerability, leaning into Him with confidence that we will not be rejected.  Faith is trust in God's goodness---this alone makes it possible for us to approach Him with openness and joy.  A child runs into its mother's arms with confidence, not in itself, but in her ability to love and protect him.  And Jesus said that we must also enter the kingdom as a little child.  God is waiting, like the father of the Prodigal Son, to hear any prayer born out of honesty, expressing whatever small faith we have in him.

The Prodigal Son went back to his father's house, certain that was one place on earth where he would be received and not thrown out, no matter what he had done.  He did not deny his sins; he just knew that his father would forgive them and receive him back -- even if only as a servant, which he deserved.  But the Prodigal Father threw caution to the wind---bring the ring and the robe, kill the fatted calf; my son has come home!
: