• Closer Than We're Far Away

    By: Kristen L. McNulty

    Reprint rights available on request. Email the author at kristenmcnulty@hotmail.com.

    There's a song from the band By the Tree called Far Away. In it the band sings "we are never alone, His promises are true, He's always closer than we're far away."

    I don't know about you but I often fear I've messed up one time too many. I've wandered too far, I've sinned too much, and I've gone just over the line of grace. But thankfully I've come to realize that 'His promises are true, He's always closer than we're far away."

    God's Arms Are Open


    Even when we have wandered like a prodigal, God is still standing looking across the horizon, just waiting for you and I to come back home into His open arms. You see friend, there is no limit to the grace of God! No matter how far you've wandered and fallen, there is a way back when you seek forgiveness and accept God's grace. As Brennan Manning wrote in the Ragamuffin Gospel:

    "Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual, but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace."

    So no matter how far you've wandered away from God, why don't you come back to Him? He is standing, waiting for you to call on His name. Maybe you're still stuck in sin, that doesn't mean you have to clean up your life first before approaching Him. Remember the story of the lost sheep? The Shepherd went out to find the sheep where he was, and our Shepherd Jesus Christ will do the same for you today. That's how much He loves you, like the song says, "He's always closer than you're far away."

    Accept The Precious Gift


    Even if you're weighed down in sin, even if you've blown it again, even if you don't feel worthy of forgiveness. God hasn't asked us to understand why He would forgive us; He's just asked us to accept it. So why don't you accept this precious gift? Pray with me.

    Father God,

    I know that sometimes I feel so far away from You. I know that the weight of the world often pulls me away from You and Your presence, but I don't want it to be that way. I believe in you, that you died for my sins and were raised from the grave. Please forgive me and wipe away my sin. Strengthen me and help me to walk in your ways. I invite you to come into my heart and make it Yours.

    In your precious name I pray. Amen.

    Turning to God and accepting His forgiveness means your slate has been wiped clean. God has, like we're told in the psalms, "separated your sin as far as the east is from the west."

    He Doesn't Remember


    If you're still having a hard time accepting that, allow me to close with this illustration. In the book A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, Ron Lee Davis retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much- loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God's forgiveness.

    In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest, however, was skeptical. To test her he said, "The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary." The woman agreed. A few days later the priest asked., "Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?"

    "Yes, he did," she replied.
    "And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, what did he say?"
    "He said, 'I don't remember'"

    What God forgives, He forgets. Wow.

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