2023-03-25 A Meditation on Notions of Drawing Near

“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”” (Jas 4:6 ESV)

Notions of holiness, we build. Explanatory device, delimiting factor, reassuring fast from foods, lifestyle persnickety and uptight: all are ways we couch ourselves in a level of confidence regarding salvation, regarding being different. But these things also prevent us from the wild night or the “too close” proximity to others, who are living out life on the edge and in the wild. We long for composure to do both: to adhere to our fast and lifestyle, while also being quick to absolve and draw near to the riff-raff.

True life reckons with astonishing gaps between this notional holiness and actual life lived out. Even the saints in the land are sore-pressed by sin. It is of untold worth to have a decisive difference in our hearts, and then to compare ourselves to others: we feel “saved” because we are manifestly different.

In a different light, all have the baggage of sin. The flipside of any honest self-appraisal is life together in embrace, an embrace of us being to blame, of us being different from those notions of holiness, the moral high bar. We are dirty and to blame. We are uptight, if claiming to be innocent of sins past, and therefore unworthy: God despises the proud (Pr 15:25; Lk 1:51; Jas 4:6). God is truly “about the business”, not of competing levels of holiness and church membership, but of turning a new corner, turning a new leaf, at least, of seeing where in our life that is needed.