Five Minute Friday: Close

I love the challenge of Five Minute Friday. Lately, I haven’t had time to participate, but I carved out some time this afternoon, because I have missed it. If you are interested in joining in, head over to Lisa-Jo Baker’s website and check out the details. In a nutshell it is hundreds of bloggers, one-word prompt, five minutes of unbridled writing.

This week the topic is “close”.  Ready…set…go!

Close

I have always been just a tad bit jealous of Moses.  Not the part where he was put in a basket as an infant and released on the Nile River, raised in a pagan nation, murdered a man, and fled his homeland into the wilderness because of the said murder.  No…not those parts…But the part where it says “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33:11a)

I remember reading that in college and thinking, “If only.”

But the more I experience in life the more I understand that it is through the brokenness that the intimacy can come.  In the depravity we realize that there is no good within us, but God in His great mercy uses weakness to glorify Himself.  God walked with Moses through some dark times.  He had a calling on his life and was protected throughout his live so that God’s glory would be know.

God’s word promises that “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)  It is through the trials in life that God draws near.  He calls us out of the mire and puts us to work.  He shows us His glory while hiding us in the cleft of the rock (Exodus 33).  He protects us.  He comes close to us.  He dwells within us.  He meets us face to face.

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 The Message

…and…STOP!