Close.

As Lea and I were running on Monday morning, these words started forming in me. Not sure why, but paying attention. Lea and I are both nearing 50. We are excited about it. Grateful for relationship with Jesus, each other and our sons. Grateful for those who we have been given to and those given to us in community. Life is certainly thick. Joys and challenge, hearts alive and heartache. So much stripping away of this heart as Jesus invites further on the narrow road. Beautiful ache.

I watched an hour old bride and groom dance this weekend. I then watched the bride dance with her daddy and the groom dance with his mom. Intimate. Precious. Close. I danced with Lea. So joyful to dance with my barefoot beauty. Jumping around, twirling. And pulling her close. Savoring a dancing moment with beauty.

Where does this yearning to be close come from? Is it silly, predictable, stereotypical pretending? Well, sure it can be, but it doesn't have to be. I believe the original desire to be close, to be near, is born out of the holy relating of Father, Son and Spirit. "A perfectly happy community of 3 persons whose nature is holiness and way of relating is love". My friends Buddy and Larry say that. And this is our heritage. We are born out of the perfect community of the Trinity. We weren't created because they needed us. We were created because they wanted us. Wow. They wanted us.

So as I long to be close to Lea as my beautiful bride and best friend, where is that coming from? Why is that even a thing? It's a thing because we've been brought near to Jesus. How does this happen?

Super regular times of reading the Bible.

Keeping lust in check regularly.

Regularly attending church.

Tither.

Alert and involved with justice causes, local and abroad.

Tongue in check.

As Dave Busby would say, "Do all of it!" But not thinking that this is what gets me close to Jesus. It's tricky. I can subtly conclude that my nearness to Jesus is tied to these honorable, even scriptural, practices. But it's not tied to any of these. Of course we know this, but how slowly and quietly our practice of living can insinuate that this is what I actually believe.

So what is it then? What gets us near to Jesus. How can we be close? Bible book of Ephesians, chapter 2, verse13. "But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away, have been brought near through the blood of Christ." The only way that we are brought near to Jesus is through His blood. Period. The greatest cost ever. My deeds and practices on their own are merely bloody rags. I so desperately want to be able to make myself close to Jesus ON MY OWN. I can't do it. The only way I'm brought near is through His blood. Cover us Lord Jesus. Cover us. Drenched in crimson. The blood of Jesus makes us near. Then as we do the things above, we experience the already present nearness to the heart of God. We don't "have to" do those things in order to be close. The blood already brings us close. The pressure's off. Now enjoy His presence. Savor the growth. Even when it's hard.

I first read The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer in college. Jimmy (my roommate) and I read it at the Country Place restaurant with our Bible prof Dr. Brown. It was there in Dayton, TN that I remember first being gripped by these words from Tozer. The danger, evil even, of God "and".

"If we would find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now, as always, God discovers Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond. When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God "and" effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the "and" lies our great woe. If we omit the "and" we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing."

NOTHING but the blood of Jesus.

Close.

Today.

There's more.