Drawing Near

            “…Abraham still stood before the Lord.  Then Abraham drew near…” Genesis 18:22-23.

            To give a little context to this… The Lord came to Abraham with two angels to talk to him.  The two angels left, went on to Sodom and Gomorrah, while the Lord stayed, and “Abraham still stood before the Lord.  Then [he] drew near…”

            I just love this little tidbit-of-a-look into Abraham’s life.  It shows how much he enjoyed God; how much he wanted to be with Him.  Even though the others had left, and it was just him and God, and it could have been all sorts of awkward because God knows all those things that Abraham had done in his life, he chose to stay and commune with God.  In fact, he drew even closer to God.

            It makes me think of a little baby just learning to crawl.  This baby is trying his best to make his way to his mama.  He crawls all the way to her; she welcomes him with open arms, a smile on her face, and kisses on his cheeks.  It may have taken him five times the effort to get to her than it would have been for her to get to him, but she is so proud of these little steps he made.  Sometimes baby struggles though, cries, and gives up when the crawling becomes too hard.  But mama still comes, and scoops him up.

            It’s like the parable of the prodigal son.  It’s about this son who was in a deep rut, and was ashamed.  He decided he didn’t need to live this way, so he was going to go back to his father’s house.  And “while [the son] was still at a distance, his father saw him and felt sorry for him. He ran to his son, put his arms around him, and kissed him.” (Lk. 15:20 GW.)  This story is a picture of Abba Father’s heart towards us.  As soon as He sees was drawing near to Him, He runs FULL SPEED ahead!  (You can read the full story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32.)

            James four verse eight says, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”  That’s a promise.