James 4:8 – "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
God seemed so far from Dan. He had struggled in recent years to find purpose in his life, floating from job to job hoping to discover his true calling. Contemplating the New Year he realized that the year gone by was full of trials and difficulties, setbacks and failures. He also realized that he had not been to Church in years and he longed and hoped to recapture the faith of his youth.
Dan prayed that God would bless him in the New Year, but even prayer was difficult to do. He gave up on God a long time ago because he decided he wanted to live a little. Dan lived more than a little.
A never ending series of relationships, one night stands, drinking, smoking, club hopping, and sleeping in on Sunday morning consumed his life. So much so, he wondered how he could ever "draw near to God" again.
Years ticked away, and after every failure or crisis Dan promised himself that he would get back to God and Church, but never did.
We can finish the story ourselves if we want. It could be that Dan never goes back to church, that he spends the rest of his life trying to fill his deep spiritual emptiness until the day he doesn’t wake up again- until there are no more tomorrows.
Or, Dan could answer the call of the Holy Spirit to come nearer to God. He could take that first step into the sanctuary and let God speak to him through worship and preaching. After a while of becoming used to the idea that God never left him, he might become a church member again, meet the woman that would become his wife, discover a calling to work with disadvantaged youth, start a family of his own, watch his children grow up, and grow old and grey with his wife. He would end his life as a pillar of the community and his church.
Sure there are other endings to this story. We don’t know exactly for sure the ways that God may bless us when we re-commit our lives to him, but we know for sure where life’s dark and dangerous paths end.
God says, "Come near to me and I will come near to you." It sounds so hard. It seems like an impossible task placed before us in some seasons of life. But too often we fail to realize that God has already taken the first step. He stretches out his hand to us with this invitation and promises that he will be there when we are ready to take his hand. In these troubling times, though taking that first step back to a life of faith is not easy, the reality is that the alternative is more terrifying than we can imagine.
Just as surely as God is mighty, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain when we accept His call to come near to Him.
