Getting Close To God Series

Leighton Ford, the husband of Billy Graham’s youngest sister, Jean, tells the story of a Russian cosmonaut. He came back from space and said, “Some people say God lives out there. I looked around, and I didn't see any God out there.”

Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, said he looked in the wrong place. If he'd stepped outside the spaceship without his space suit, he would have seen God very quickly (Leighton Ford, “Hope for a Great Forever,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 96; www.Preaching Today.com).

We laugh at that, but it raises a very important question: Where do you meet God today? Where do you as a sinful human being draw near to a Holy, Almighty God?

I like the way John Fischer put it years ago in his commentary on the contemporary church. He said:

As the church today gets more and more hip—more and more need-oriented, responding to the buttons that people push in their pews—I find myself longing for more of a historical faith. I find myself not wanting to have everything explained to me in simple terms.

I'm not even sure I want all my needs met as much as I want to meet God, and sometimes I wonder if he's really interested in the noise of our contemporary clamoring. Like my dog who can't seem to get anywhere because he keeps having to stop and scratch his fleas, I wonder if we are so busy scratching where everybody itches that we aren't taking anybody anywhere significant (John Fischer in “Longing for Something Old,” Covenant Companion, Oct. 1992, Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 5; www.Preaching Today.com).

How about you? Do you want to go somewhere significant? Do you want to have all your needs met? Or do you want to meet God? If you want to meet God, then I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 20, Exodus 20, where the Bible shows us where to meet a Holy, Almighty God.

Exodus 20:21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was (ESV).

If you want to meet God, then like Moses…

MEET GOD IN THE DARKNESS.

Come near to God in places no one else wants to go. Get close to God in places of confusion and pain.

The “thick darkness” here is literally a cloud, which blocks out all light. But the Old Testament uses the same word in other places to describe deep gloom or misery. In those contexts, people experience such hardship that despair descends on them like a dark cloud (Isa 60:2; Jer 13:16; Eze 34:12; Joel 2:2; Zep 1:15) (Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages). Yet, those are the places where people meet God.

Kara Tippetts, an author, mother of four and co-worker with her pastor husband Jason, went home to Jesus on March 22, 2015, after a long battle with breast cancer. As the cancer spread, Kara courageously embraced her situation, trusting in a Sovereign God. She believed that cancer was not the point, but Jesus was. As Kara and her family processed what God was calling them to live out, she invited her community to join her journey through this seemingly impossible ordeal—how would she trust God in the midst of sickness? And then, how would she trust God in the midst of dying?

In the fall of 2014, David C. Cook published her story, The Hardest Peace. She refused to be defined by cancer and considered every moment a gift and an opportunity to learn more about grace and trusting God; she believed suffering was not an absence of beauty, but an opportunity to understand God's love on a deeper level. Near the end of her life Kara wrote:

My little body has grown tired of the battle, and treatment is no longer helping. But what I see, what I know, what I have is Jesus. He has still given me breath, and with it I pray I would live well and fade well. By degrees doing both, living and dying, as I have moments left to live. I get to draw my people close, kiss them and tenderly speak love over their lives. I get to pray into eternity my hopes and fears for the moments of my loves. I get to laugh and cry and wonder over heaven. I do not feel like I have the courage for this journey, but I have Jesus—and he will provide. He has given me so much to be grateful for, and that gratitude, that wondering over his love, will cover us all. And it will carry us—carry us in ways we cannot comprehend (Blythe Hunt, "Homecoming," Mundane Faithfulness blog, 3-22-15; www.PreachingToday.com).

Kara Tippetts drew close to Jesus in the darkness, and you can too! Don’t cower away in fear like the children of Israel did. Instead, like Moses, draw near to the darkness. Embrace the darkness, and there meet God.