Come near to
God and He will come near to you. Wash
your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. – James 4:8
Do we sometimes feel that God is right there with us, and
at other times he seems thousands of miles away? When we pray, is there close communion with
God some days, and other days it’s as though our prayers go unheard? Why does God seem so far away at times? Is He preoccupied with running the
universe? Is He busy doing battle with
Satan or tied up attending to the needs of more important people? Jesus promised that He would never leave us
(Matthew 28:20), yet why are there times when we don’t sense His presence?
James gives the answer to these questions. “Come
near to God and He will come near to you.”
When we’re separated from God, we’re the ones who have strayed, not
God. There may be sin in our lives that
we need to confess and then ask for His forgiveness. Or we may have been distracted by other
things, so we’ve neglected to spend time in prayer and Bible study. When we realize this has happened, we should
immediately seek God with all our strength.
We need to keep seeking after Him, until once again, we enjoy close
fellowship with Him.
If our relationship with God is cold and distant, examine our
life to see if there are sins or attitudes that we need to ask God to
remove. Spend time in prayer and in God’s
Word; go to Him with a humble heart and confess our sins. Always remember, God
is not the one who changes (Malachi 3:6).
It is us who wander, and it’s our responsibility to return to Him. He stands ready to love us, to forgive us,
and to restore our relationship with Him.
