Going Deeper with God

Isa 33:19 “Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand.”

Going Deeper with God

My New Year desktop image is of a sunrise peeking over the horizon. The words on the page are Happy New Year; Go deeper with God this year. I chose this image because every morning I wake and see the sunrise in a new light. This is my hope for this year, that I may see God in a new light also, instead of the same old God that I’ve spent time with in years past.

The same old God, you might ask? Sometimes we get too comfortable with our knowing God and sometimes we need to be shaken out of our comfort zone to see Him in a new light. We go through the motions day after day, read our bible in the same old way, get cozy within our skin and continue on our path of sin because, well we’re comfortable in knowing that we’ll be forgiven. 

This comfort zone should scare many. When you get too comfortable, God usually throws something out there to shake you up a bit, to wake you up and say wait a minute! I found this to be true thirteen years ago when I was too comfortable in my marriage and my relationship with God. So comfortable I allowed myself to be used and abused so much so I became a broken shard of glass seeking anything to save me and put me back together.

My family was consumed with their own lives to worry about lil ol me and God gave me the shake up of my life that would alter who I was and who I was about to become. No, God doesn’t send you a married man but he does witness a broken soul and will bring two broken souls together to become one fixable piece of artwork, His work. 

Pastor Mike said something that struck me. Someone had asked him why God protected her while not protecting others. He said, ‘because you’re a child of God, the other person had nothing to do with Him.’

When we become a child of God, we fall under the protection of a Father, a heavenly Father who will watch over us from above. Just like our dad on earth, we become too comfortable in knowing he’ll take care of us when we get in trouble but when God calls him home, we feel we’re out here on our own depending solely on God to protect us. He is our only resource.

Our mother is the nurturer while our father is the strength we turn to in our time of need. If our father has passed away, we rely on God to be our strength when we need Him. Again, we tend to get too comfortable figuring He’ll bail us out; sin or no sin, He’s got our back. 

With all of the deaths happening recently, it had me thinking, was God protecting those people from all the evil in the world and were they children of God? I don’t know, which gives rise to my second question, are they all basking in the glory of Heaven? Had they gotten so comfortable with their belief in God that they forgot to think of Him in recent months before their death?
This is why we need God daily and not just casual weekly visits to a church. This weekly visit does not absolve you of the daily need to bring Him into your day. We need to go deeper with God and that doesn’t mean memorize scripture verses, post more Godly memes or try to appear to be one with God. Going deeper with God means just that, to know Him deeply, understand His ways, live His truth and be like the Son he sent to die for you. When you get too comfortable, you begin to show signs of straying.

When I see people rambling on with hate in their mouths and conveying negative thoughts I think what that person must be suffering from. Why does he or she hold onto so much hate and ignorance while claiming to love God? I never understood the imbalance that goes on in the world and as * I * go deeper with God, I can see that even He scratches His head watching his kids destroy this beautiful creation.

Even as He placed a warm blanket of protection over me many years ago, I still fall and His fatherly strength picks me up and moves me along the way. As I shuffle forward, I realize I am going deeper with God, in meaning, in understanding, in hope and in faith. 

1 Peter 4:10, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms." (NIV)