¿Quieres más?

By Taisa Efseaff Maffey

“¿Conoce a Cristo?” I asked the teenage girl in my best Spanish accent.  (Translation: “Do you know Christ?”)

“Más o menos,” she replied with an adolescent smirk.  (Translation: “More or less.”)

“¿Quieres más?” I queried.  (Translation: “Do you want more?”)

The girl shrugged her shoulders.  She didn’t turn away, so I, not knowing how to continue the conversation in my non-native language, handed her one of the flyers I had been given to hand out.  The flyer had on it service times for a church in downtown Ensenada, where I was street witnessing with other people from my mission group.  She took the flyer, looked at it, and walked away.

“Do you want to know Jesus Christ more?” is an interesting question.  It’s the question, really.  It’s similar to a question that came up recently for me.

The other morning I was having my prayer time, and I found myself repeating a fairly typical refrain in my prayer life: “I want to feel how much you love me, Lord.  I want to feel closer to You,” I prayed earnestly.

Immediately, this response popped into my head: “How close to Me do you want to be?”

Hmmm…

And then, this Scripture:

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8a)

And there was my answer.  But I’ll get back to that in a second.

We all have different perceptions of God.  Even Christians who love God and follow His teachings in the Bible may have differing perceptions of Him.  These perceptions can vary for as many different reasons:

Our perceptions may be based on how God was presented to us as a child, whether in church or by our parents or family members.

We may have been influenced by our childhoods themselves.  For example, if we had happy childhoods, then God may have been perceived as good; if we had troubled childhoods, then God may have been perceived as bad, angry, or even just indifferent.

Our perceptions of our Heavenly Father are also closely tied to our relationship and experiences with our earthly fathers (or perhaps other male authority figures).

It’s also possible to project our feelings about ourselves onto how we perceive God feels about us.  If we’re prideful, self-centered, and have a sense of entitlement, then we might think that God must approve of us and everything that we do, or at least won’t hold anything against us.  (It’s interesting to note that if you ask people whether they think they will go to heaven when they die, most will say yes because no matter what they’ve done in life, they feel they are still overall “a good person.”)  On the other hand, if we feel bad about ourselves and guilty for things we’ve done wrong or things we’ve not done that we should have, then we might think that God disapproves of us, is disappointed in us, or is even angry at us.

I remember being taught about Jesus as a child in Sunday School.  I was taught that He loved children, and He always looked happy and friendly in the pictures that I colored of Him.  And yet, there was a disconnect between what I knew about Jesus and how I perceived God the Father, even though I understood the two were intimately connected.  I knew intellectually that God the Father loved me, but I didn’t feel His loving affection towards me.  Rather, He seemed austere and distant.

Though I’ve been a Christian for over 20 years and am now obviously an adult, I’ve recognized remnants of those childhood perceptions of God in my relationship with Him even today.  Actually, if I’m being honest, sometimes more than just remnants.

Which brings me back to my original prayer requests, and the following response:

“How close to Me do you want to be?”

It was like I was being asked almost the same question I posed to that teenage girl: “¿Quieres más?”  (Do you want more?)

And then there’s that verse: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8a).

It’s set up like an if-then statement: If you draw near to God, then He will draw near to you.  Simple as that.  God never forces Himself on anyone.  He will be as close to us as we want.  The closer we move towards Him, the closer He’ll move towards us.  The closeness of our relationship with God is up to us.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20)

“The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.” (Psalm 145:18)

But what do you do when there’s a discrepancy between what you know to be true and what you feel?  Or what do you do when your perceptions of God don’t line up with what the Bible teaches about Him?  Quite simply, the answer is found in Jesus.

In the Book of John, Jesus speaks to His disciples:

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?  The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14:7-11)

Though they had been spending time with Jesus face-to-face and listening to His teachings with their own ears, though Jesus had told them previously point-blank, “I and My Father are one,” even the disciples still hadn’t completely gotten it (John 10:30).

Jesus was God in the flesh.  He came down from heaven, a distance none of us can truly fathom, and walked this earth to be as close to us as possible, before suffering the punishment for our sins through the most brutal torture and death on the cross.  The way we learn Who God is and understand the depth of His love for us and grow closer to Him is by getting to know Jesus.  And what do you know, in the Bible we actually have a personal invitation from Him to get to know Him:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

I don’t know how long it will take me to completely get over my lifelong misperceptions about God – to feel completely secure in His love and affection for me – but I have a game plan and I’m going to use it.  We all have been given the opportunity to know Him, to grow closer to Him, and to experience His love for us, even when we do not understand it.  And that is by spending more time getting to know Jesus, through reading about Him in the Bible and by talking directly to Him.

I’d like to close with a prayer.  It’s for me and it’s for you, regardless of where you are in your relationship with God:

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Amen.