Small Start // Big God, Powerful ChangeSample

Minimum Safe Distance

Have you gotten to where you stay at a “minimum safe distance” from God, for fear of what He might ask—what assignment He might put on your heart, what calling He might put on your life? Do you ever worry, if you allow yourself to get too close, He might leverage His position to press you to become . . . say . . . a monk in the mountains or missionary to Africa or evangelist at your work or confessor to your friends or something else, equally disrupting to your plans?

For many of us men, fears like these characterize our relationships with God. You see, we know the plans we have for ourselves—plans for good things ahead—and we trust ourselves to know what’s “good.” So, we’re wary of potential disruptions, even from the God we love.

King David wrote, though, it’s precisely when we close the distance to God that we actually discover what we’ve been looking for, all along:

“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

Not the “boredom of your heart” or “annoyance of your heart” or “frustration of your heart”—the “desires of your heart”—what you’ve always wanted, but haven’t found. The key, brother, is trust (Psalm 37:5). We must trust that the God of the universe might know better what is, in fact, “good” for us. And we must trust that He wills our good and knows how to bring it about (Psalm 37:5–6).

Okay, so what do we do?

What's been on your heart, or in your mind, to do that you've not yet done . . . reading Scripture regularly, joining some brothers in community, confessing something to a friend? God's put that thing on your heart to bring you closer to Him. Go ahead, move closer.