"His nearness is our good." - Psalm 73:28

It is good for God to be so near, whether it is us pursuing Him and drawing close, or Him pursuing us and drawing close. It's a good thing for us that God likes us, wants to be with us, wants to be close to us. He made us to enjoy us, and He enjoys us most when we're enjoying ourselves in Him.

And on the flipside - it's bad for us to try to run from God, or from each other for that matter. It's not right for us to seek to shelter ourselves from others, or to hide pieces of ourselves in relationship. God built that in somehow, that need to belong and to feel accepted, and to fight that is probably a huge source of stress and anxiety in people all over the world.

While divorce always seem to be on the rise, what about all of the marriages that stay together, but where the couple is just miserable? Crime goes through cycles, where people hurt other people or take someone else's stuff. But what about outright comtempt, as we grow more and more cyncial towards each other, uncaring towards each other, hurtful and hateful and spiteful towards each other. We kill others around us every day with our hateful thoughts. We want to be left alone, knowing that truly being alone will kill us for sure. How many people today are going through the motions, just trying to tread water, because they've been hurt and shut out of everyone else's lives, or they've shut everyone else out of their own little world?

"His nearness is our good."

I'm finding that one of the ways to get my children out of their bad attitudes is to get really close. If I can get really close... without frowning... without growling in anger... without threatening them to be grounded or to have gamecube time taken away... if I can just get close enough... I can whisper that I love them, that I like them, and that I'm going to tickle them all over. And we'll laugh, lifting each other out of the circumstance of hurt and disobedience and into the freedom of laughter and ticklishness. It's not fool-proof, and I'm often too foolish to make the attempt. But I've found that if Daddy can get close... I can diffuse the situation and release us to be family, to be together, to work it out, to settle the matter and move on.

Selfishness repels, while selflessness draws near. His nearness is good for us, and I imagine that it's pretty good for Him, too.

just thinkin'...
- posted by Rick @ 10:24