Closeness

Walking with Jesus is a journey. The relationship with Him is always different and they can never be predicted. More recently, I was so close to Him that I  heard every beat of His heart. I could feel His breath and His smell. When He spoke to me His words dissolved me. When I was scared, I closed my eyes, firmly pressed against His chest, and He walked me through fear.

But there are times when I do not feel Him so close. And now is such a period. I know that He did not leave; I just do not have such closeness as before. I can feel His eyes on me, but I can not find Him. I was in the service and felt very clearly how Jesus looks at me, I started to look for Him. I turned to the right, to the left, looked up, down, forward and back. I looked for His presence throughout the territory and in all the corners, but could not find. It's a horrible feeling.

My first thought was that I did something wrong and He’s hiding from me. And then I remembered a couple of months ago when I asked Him to move away from me. I know it sounds strange, but sometimes intimacy with Jesus is a difficult period. Because He is holy! Remember reading the Psalms, where David asks the Lord to move away from him that he would gain strength (Psalm 38: 14), and I felt then every word that is written. I cried as if they were my words, like someone ripped them out of my heart and put them in the Bible.

And I started to ask for forgiveness for what I said earlier. I started making excuses and said that I really do not want  Him go. If He wants to punish me let it be, I just don’t want Him to go! Then I felt Him smiling. You know, smile can speak. And this was just the smile, in  which He told me that He knows everything and I do not need excuses, and I realized that He was very, very close. But I still couldn’t understand why I could not see him? What's going on?

And that morning the Holy Spirit reminded me of a situation out of my childhood. One day my father gave me a red bike. For me it was a great event because my father gave it to me, to me not to my sister or brother. That day I was very business-like, and I wanted to ride on it, but I did not know how. And dad immediately began to teach me. First he had a bicycle seat and the steering wheel, after we passed a couple of meters he let the steering wheel and told me to try and constantly repeated to me, "Do not look down, look straight." He repeated it every second, and I was so attentive in looking forward that didn’t   notice when father was silent. And I was amazed because started to realize that I can ride a bicycle. I shared my enthusiasm with my father, and he did not answer. Then I turned my head and realized that I was alone, and my dad was from me at a distance of one hundred meters. I jumped to my feet, turned the bike and walked swiftly to my dad, to ask him why did he leave me alone. I did not have time to go to him, as my dad turned to everyone standing on the street and said, "Did you see how she rides? This is our breed! " I remembered the words for a lifetime. He was so proud of me. Seeing his eyes, I forgot why I went to him. I sat back down on the bike to show how I can ride. It was quite a funny situation and I recently recalled it to my father, and we laughed together.

I think that Jesus sometimes does so. It's not that I did something wrong,   He just teaches me independence, and He as well as my dad knows that I will do it, because I am His. At the time when my father didn’t hold the bicycle, I was still his little girl, and he did not cease to be my dad. He was worried about me all the time from the moment when I sat down to the time when I stopped. And even when he let me go, he was still watching over me and I think that it was his look that gave me confidence.

After a bit of reflection on the similarity of the situation that has occurred, and then the one I'm worried now, I realized that intimacy is not just when you’re close. Intimacy is when you know without words, when you feel the distance, when you hear what is silent or see what is hidden from everyone. It is this proximity Jesus feels to me! And it's great that he's teaching me to be as close to Him. It's not that I did something wrong, but He teaches me real intimacy. I hope that He says to all the angels, "Do you see how she is doing? This is my rock!"

Once I learned to understand Him when He says nothing, then there was a time when I learned to recognize His smell, only recently learned to read His smile, learned to trust Him in the dark and find Him where it would seem impossible, but now I'm learning to trust Jesus, Who believes in me. His look on me, what will I do? And I will continue to love Him and to be even closer.