Drawing Near

James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." For some reason, I struggled with this verse today - I have heard it 'who knows how many times' before - I think it bothered me because it seems to put alot of responsibility on 'me' and I'm a mess - I don't always know how to "draw near" and I'm very scared of failing; missing Him.

Jesus tells us in John 12:32 that HE WILL draw all men to Himself when He is lifted up and John 6:44 says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me DRAWS him."

So we have Jesus telling us that HE WILL draw all men to Himself and NO ONE can come to Him unless He does DRAW them; but then James says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." Hmmmm.....

I received a pretty cool image of being by the water's edge and seeing something out a little way from shore. You want to "draw" it in, so you gently place your hand in the water and start moving the water towards you, in turn, the current begins to move the object closer to where you can reach out and bring it in closer to yourself. That object really has no choice but to go where the current directs, but we on the other hand, we sometimes swim with all our might - we fight against the current with everything in us to try and break away.

I think maybe that is what these verses are saying - God's sovereign hand is the one lovingly stirring those waters and trying to "draw" us to Himself and He is telling us in James to stop fighting - draw near - as we surrender to the current and allow ourselves to move in His direction, He will reach out - draw near to us - so He can grab hold and bring us in safely to Himself.

HE IS doing the drawing....I don't know what current you may be fighting; surrender and DRAW NEAR.