Closer to Him

I assume that since you are reading this blog, you have a desire to be close to God. Sometimes we all struggle to know exactly how to do this. There are many places in the Bible that we can go in order to gain some insight into this question. I believe that the 90th Psalm is one such place.

In verse eight the Psalmist says, "You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence." Often our own shame sets us apart from God. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, our guilt and shame causes us to try and hide from God (Genesis 3:8). We don't want to pray or read because of our sin. Simply remembering that God knows even our secret sins can help to bridge the gap between ourselves and our Lord. Acknowledging a problem is the first step to change. Why not talk to God about it? He already knows all of our thoughts and actions anyway.

Psalms 90:11 states, "Who understands the power of Your anger and the fury, according to the fear that is due You?" "The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God" (Deuteronomy 4:24). If we truly realized the power of His anger, we would be more likely to walk the straight and narrow path. One of the reasons that corporal punishment deters bad behavior is because children do not want to feel the power of their parents' discipline. Luke 12:5 tells us whom we should fear, "fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!" These are not the only ideas though that the Psalmist gives us regarding how to draw close to God.

He moves on to some more positive advice. "So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom" (Psalms 90:12). Remembering that our life is short and that we could die at any time can help us to draw near to Him now. Often we think that we can wait for another day to put our relationship with Him in the top spot. We are not promised tomorrow though. When we realize this then we want to draw near to Him now not tomorrow because we know that we might not have tomorrow.

The next idea is something that I talked a little about last week, starting our days out with Him. Psalms 90:14 pleads for Him to "satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days." There is something about starting the day out in time with our Lord that helps us to stay close to Him all day long.

We find my final point regarding this topic in the last verse of this Psalm. That verse talks about the work of our hands. Doing the work that He has called us to do helps us draw near to Him while idleness on the other hand pulls us further away.

There are so many more ways to draw near to Him, but these are some of the ideas that I found when reading the 90th Psalm. We would love to hear from you regarding what helps you to stay close to God. Please share your ideas in the comments section.
Jane 

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), Copyright(c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.