KISSING FEAR

People are worried about me, it seems. One post about sleeping alone and suddenly the world cares about who you're sleeping with.

Or not with, as the case may be. 

Intimacy with a man isn't the only thing missing in my life, if you want the real junk on me, you should know this: I'm feeling less than intimate with God these days too. 

The 'worship movement' send kisses to Jesus thing has always made me uncomfortable because I can count the sum total of my kisses on two hands and probably less than that. And also because I'm probably one of the few people in the world who thinks that when Solomon was songing about the kisses of his lips he really meant literal kisses and literal lips and not this pseudo expressive  moment we imagine we're having with Jesus. 

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I've never been one to wake up in the wee hours to have Jesus, journal and Jamba Juice, and so my version of 'time with God' has always been more of 'meditate on the same verse for three weeks until I have it so deeply in me I couldn't forget it if I tried.' This system has worked well for me in some seasons and not so well for me in other seasons. We are in a good season for now. 

The verse of the season is Psalm 130:3-4, "If you oh Lord should mark iniquities, Who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared."

I've been camped here precisely because of that last word there: feared.

I stay far from intimacy because I fear it. 

This is the same reason I hesitate to ask forgiveness from God (or anyone else), because I fear. 

So how is it that David is saying here, "there's forgiveness with God, so you can fear Him."

You see why I need to camp out here for a few days?

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I'm a fairly gentle sort of person, amiable, easygoing, I try not to cross people and when I do, I try to make amends quickly. But it is not because I want their forgiveness, it is because I fear that they will not give it to me unasked. 

But God? God grants me forgiveness so that I may fear Him? It doesn't seem to add up at first. But:

How grand is it that the God of the universe, the Creator of everything created, the Provider of everything given, and the Good of all that is good would grant forgiveness and how much more grand is it of Him to guarantee it to His children?

I find it is the guarantee that is more difficult for me to believe than the actual forgiveness.

I am the child who doesn't believe her parent heard her the first six times she asked for another quarter for the gumball machine. I keep asking because in my heart there is no guarantee. 

David is saying to us, "Hey, listen, there's a guarantee of forgiveness for you children of God, which means that He can be trusted, which means that He is more grand, more holy, more spectacular than you can imagine. Worship. Fear. Be in awe. Draw near. 

He's not marking your iniquities, so stand close, stand near, be intimate, He can be trusted."