Simply to Be Near Him

Simply to Be Near Him

There is something at the heart of Awakened & Consecrated that I believe we cannot afford to overlook.

We can talk about hearing God, carrying His voice, discernment, consecration, revelation, calling, healing, deliverance, and being used by Him—and all of these things are well and good.

But none of them were ever meant to replace the simplicity of being with Him.

Everything must flow from intimacy with the Lord, not from a transactional relationship with Him.

We can become so focused on what God can give us...

revelation, answers, direction, breakthrough, healing, anointing, purpose, influence, and even the opportunities He entrusts to us...that without realizing it, we begin seeking what comes from His presence more than simply desiring His presence.

And that brings us to a difficult but necessary question:

When my desire for what He can give me becomes greater than my desire simply to be near Him, what does that reveal about my heart?

I realize this can be a difficult question, especially for those of us who have walked through prolonged seasons of suffering, physical sickness, loss, or circumstances that continually bring us back before the Lord asking for His help.

There is no shame in needing Him.

There is no shame in asking Him to heal, provide, intervene, strengthen, or comfort us. In fact, Scripture invites us to bring our needs before Him.

Sometimes suffering causes us to reach for God in ways we never would have otherwise, and we discover Him there as Father, Comforter, and the One who remains with us in our trouble.

I know this through my own experience.

Through seasons of loss and grief, sickness, injury, recovery, and moments when life looked very different from what I had hoped or expected, He has met me there—right in the middle of it.

Not always by immediately changing the circumstances. Not always by answering every question the way I wanted Him to. But by being present and faithful through it all.

There are things I know about the Lord today that I didn’t learn simply by reading about Him. I came to know them by walking with Him through places where I needed Him desperately and discovering, again and again, that He was there.

And after all of it, there is something settled deeply within me:

I know that I know He will never fail me.

Whatever comes, whatever changes, whatever I may still have to walk through, I know His faithfulness.

He has met me in the grief, He has met me in the sickness, He has met me in the recovery, and He has met me in the uncertainty.

He has never stopped being God in the middle of any of it.

Perhaps that is one of the unexpected treasures found in suffering—not the suffering itself, but discovering the faithfulness of God within it.

Paul writes:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles…”

—2 Corinthians 1:3–5

I find tremendous hope in that.

He doesn’t shame us for needing comfort. He identifies Himself as the God of all comfort.

And remarkably, the comfort we receive doesn’t necessarily end with us. Paul tells us that God comforts us in our troubles so that we may eventually comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from Him.

Our suffering can become a place where intimacy deepens.

So the heart question isn’t, “Do I come to God because I need Him?”

Of course we need Him.

Perhaps the deeper question is:

“In the midst of everything I need from Him, am I also learning to love Him simply for who He is?”

Can I seek His healing and still treasure the Healer?
Can I ask for His provision and still desire the Provider?
Can I desperately need His comfort while discovering that His presence itself is becoming precious to me?

This isn’t about measuring whether our motives are pure enough to approach Him.

It’s an invitation into deeper relationship.

Even in suffering—perhaps especially there—we can discover that He is not merely the One who has what we need.

He is the One we need.

LIGHT BRINGS CLARITY

So when I speak about examining our hearts, I am not talking about placing ourselves beneath judgment or condemnation. Jesus has already paid the price for us, and mercy triumphs over judgment.

We come before Him first as beloved sons and daughters, fully invited into relationship with the Father. And from that place of belonging, we are formed to represent Him as ambassadors of His Kingdom.

His light does not reinforce the accusations of the enemy. It reveals what is true. It exposes the lies we have believed, the places where we may have unknowingly come into agreement with them, and anything that has distorted our understanding of who He is or who we are in Him.

And when those things are brought into the light, we are given the opportunity to release our agreement with what is false and come into greater agreement with Truth. With who Jesus is, what He has accomplished, and who we have become in Him.

This is not the false light of condemnation.

It is the light that leads us into freedom.

And it is Jesus Himself, the Light of the world, who invites us to walk in it.

Light brings clarity to what is in the room.

When we make space for Holy Spirit and surrender ourselves to His process, we are willingly stepping into that light, and light exposes things.

Not to humiliate or condemn us, and not to hold our failures over us.

But to reveal what needs to be brought into alignment with Him.

There is a beautiful vulnerability that begins to develop when we stop hiding from God and freely enter into relationship with Him. We become, in a sense, naked and unashamed before Him, allowing ourselves to be fully known while discovering that we are also fully loved.

And He receives us as we are.

But He loves us far too deeply to leave us untouched by that relationship.

He begins walking us through healing. He puts His finger on wounds, motives, fears, ambitions, false identities, mixtures, and places of compromise. He reveals where we have confused the counterfeit with the authentic. He shows us where distraction has slowly pulled our attention away from Him and where reputation, recognition, or grandeur may have begun competing with holiness.

Not because He is pushing us away.

Because He is drawing us nearer.

Healing happens in that surrender.

It happens in going low.

It happens when something within us finally says:

“Lord, I’m in this for the long haul. I trust You. I love You. Here is my heart; take all of me. I receive Your love for me, and I give You permission to show me what is true.”

This is intimacy.

And the closer we draw to Him, the more His love brings into the light whatever is keeping us from knowing Him more deeply.

REMAINING AT HIS FEET

There is another side to this that we cannot overlook.

There is nothing wrong with coming to the Lord with our needs. He invites us to ask, to seek, to knock, to cast our cares upon Him, and to receive what He so lovingly provides.

His benefits are good. His healing and deliverance are good. His provision, wisdom, comfort, correction, and direction are gifts of His love toward us.

But we lose something precious when we begin to veer away from Him, returning only when another need arises, another crisis comes, or we need another answer.

He was never meant to become the place we visit when life goes wrong. He is meant to be the One with whom we live.

If we have experienced healing, freedom, or deliverance, there is no better place to remain than at His feet.

Not because we live afraid of losing what He has done, but because continued intimacy with Him keeps our hearts anchored in the One from whom that freedom came.

There is a heart posture that learns to remain there even while we live our lives out in the world.

We work.
We serve.
We build.
We minister.
We care for our families.

We navigate responsibilities, relationships, disappointments, celebrations, and ordinary everyday life. And yet, inwardly, our hearts can remain turned toward Him.

Jesus said:

“Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. [Live in Me, and I will live in you.]”

—John 15:4 AMPC

Abiding is more than showing up when we need something.

It is remaining.

It is learning to live from relationship with Him rather than continually wandering away and returning only when circumstances remind us how desperately we need Him.

There is a difference between repeatedly coming to His feet because we are desperate for what He can do and developing a heart that has learned to remain at His feet because we love who He is.

That posture follows us into the world.

We can leave the prayer room without leaving His presence.
We can rise from our knees without our hearts rising from that place of surrender.

We carry the secret place with us because intimacy has become more than something we practice. It is becoming the way we live. Remaining at His feet is not merely a physical position. It is a posture of the heart.

Freedom was never meant to lead us away from our need for Him. If anything, it should draw us even closer.

The Order of Our Affections

Jesus gives us such a beautiful order in Matthew 6:33:

“But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.”

—Matthew 6:33 AMPC

The order matters.

Him first.

Before His gifts, before our calling or ministry, before influence or the desire to be heard, and even before all that we need from Him, we desire Him.

Just, Him.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest expressions of consecration: not merely asking God to use our lives, but surrendering our lives because we genuinely desire Him.

The secret place isn’t merely where we receive instructions for our assignment. It is where relationship is cultivated. It is where we learn His heart. Where familiarity with His presence deepens. Where we discover that being loved by Him is not something we have to earn through usefulness, performance, ministry, or spiritual accomplishment.

And where our love for Him becomes less about what He might do for us and increasingly about who He is.

Before we ask, “Lord, what do You want to do through me?” there must remain the much simpler cry:

“Lord, I just want to be near You.”

Before we desire to carry His voice, may we desire to know His heart.
Before we desire His gifts, may we desire the Giver.
Before we desire to be used by Him, may we simply desire to be with Him.

And when we rise from His feet and walk back into the world, may something within us remain right there.

Abiding.
Surrendered.
Close.

Everything else must flow from there.

Ohh, what Love!

Much Love in Him,
—Cynthia