Familiar Yet Reverent

Burroughs emphasizes (pp. 47-48) the importance of becoming familiar with God. He makes the statement, "One great reason why God suffers you to fall into afflictions so much is that you may come running to Him." I believe Burroughs' statement to be profound in its simplicity. God really does want us to come to Him and to know Him as He is. What a beautiful thought! What a comforting thought! When we worship God, says Burroughs, "there will grow a sweet and blessed familiarity..." between us and God. I do not know one Christian who would deny that he or she desires this familiarity.

If God wants us, then, to become familiar with Him, certainly this familiarity is attainable. That said, a question arises in my mind: how can one come to meet God on familiar terms and still come with the reverence due His holy Name? Humanly speaking, when I am familiar with someone, then I come to that person in a much more relaxed, real, open, vulnerable way. I come without a doubt of rejection (regardless of my own failures) and with expectation of mutual encouragement. Perhaps this is what God desires. But the opening words of Ecclesiastes 5 remind me that when a person comes into God's Presence he should be careful in what he says because "God is in heaven and you are on earth." Acknowledging the larger context of vows, I still observe a principle in those Verses? "God is high exalted above what we can even comprehend from this lowly state; therefore, come before Him with reverence." The Old Testament could hardly emphasize this point more. And Christ did not hesitate to condemn those who came proudly before God and took liberty with the Law He had decreed (the Pharisees). More Texts and examples could be given, but I will let those suffice. The point remains that God deserves, desires, and demands reverence when His creation comes into His Presence.

With that point in mind, I return to my original question: how do familiarity and reverence mix? It does seem that God wants us to come to Him in the real, open, vulnerable way in which we would go to a familiar friend. He does offer consistency, love, and the hope of mutual encouragement. However, the relaxed (perhaps presumptuous) way in which we approach each other seems hopelessly irreverent in our communion with God. Even those we view as very familiar with God treated Him with reverence (i.e. Moses, David, John, etc.). We must be careful not to allow our (hopefully) increasing familiarity with God to lead to flippancy. He deserves better. In fact, I would venture to say that instead of taking our familiarity with God down to the level of our human interactions, we should instead raise the level of respect amongst those we are closest to here without losing the openness, love, and vulnerability that come with familiarity. But that is another topic. For now, as we grow ever more familiar with God, may our reverence and respect for Him increase as well.