Breaking the Distance Lie

I had the greatest blessing and privilege of knowing about the Lord all my life thanks to my family who invested in me and prayed and desired to see me grow as a strong woman of faith. Even from my earliest of memories I can see how they loved the Lord and watching them and seeing their faith as a young child I also grew a love for Him myself. Before any belief systems had a chance to resonate in my mind and heart I had the mentality as any innocent child would have about God- that He is a good father and that He loves me and wants the best for me. And my understanding about Jesus was that He was God’s son that He sacrificed so that He could spend eternity with me. And what I knew about Holy Spirit was that He lived in me and helped guide me as I learned to grow more as a child who was well-mannered and well-respected by those around me. The gospel was simple, and I knew my place as a child and daughter of God.

As I held these beliefs in my heart I continued to grow as a young child filled with faith in the goodness of God and who He says I am. Before I had the mental capacity to sit in church for long sermons and teachings that were too profound for me to comprehend, I just believed that God loved me and wanted for me what was best, just like my own parents did for me. I had such faith in His goodness that even when I was struck ill at seven years old, I remember saying to my mom I did not want to go to the doctor because I knew Jesus was going to heal me. Later that day my fever broke and I was back to perfect health, and I was able to continue to school the next day.

I would have conversations with Jesus everyday about everything. I was never taught or pushed to think or believe this way, I was just sure that He genuinely cared about everything I was going through and about the big dreams and desires that I had in my heart just like every other kid. I wasn’t afraid to come to Him about anything, no thing in my life that was important to me was too little for Jesus to care about.

Holy Spirit was someone that I connected with from a young age. He was the one who directed and helped connect the dots of the gospel to me when I was five, and ever since then He helped direct and grow my character. I knew of Him and the fact that He lived in me, but I never fully understood how to actually steward a relationship with Him until I was a bit older. But that did not stop Him from revealing to me things about God from a young age, and showing me how much He loves me and the people around me. And with the seeds He planted in my heart He grew in me the same heart for people.

As I child I understood the basics of the simple gospel. But then religion creeped its way in.

Before I say anymore I just want to point out and clarify that I love and honor the background I grew up in because it grew in me a love for scripture and a desire to search it out for every little thing that God reveals through it. It also grew in me a hunger for righteousness and purity not only in my life but for this world.

But as I got older I began to understand from teachings around me that whenever I messed up and made a mistake God was no longer a loving Father, but one who was angry and ready to condemn me. I then picked up the belief that until I could get rid of the sinfulness in my heart God was blinded to me because “scripture says that God cannot look on to sin”- therefore I was actually "sin".

My understanding of God being a loving Father and One who was always with me shifted to an understanding that He was distant and intimidated of me and my sin, and because I’m human and I mess up all the time there’s no chance of Him ever coming close to me.

A desire to perform for His attention began to grow in me. I found myself beginning to strive my way through life, in the big and little things, not necessarily to gain attention from those around me, I just wanted to make my Father proud. I would try to do everything that was good and right in God’s eyes so that I myself could be good and right in His eyes. I picked up on things I saw others that seemed to have favor do, and would try to do them myself just to somehow get more favor from God.

All of this succeeded to develop the fear of God in me, but not the healthy kind.

I was afraid of Him. I was scared to make any little mistake because once I did I thought I screwed it all up and would have to start over from scratch trying to gain His favor. And because I was afraid of Him I could no longer come to Him about the little things in my life anymore because I thought He simply didn’t cared. As long as I performed perfectly I would be okay. I found myself walking on eggshells trying to please Him, wanting to be the perfect daughter but scared breathless that if I slipped He would condemn me and create distance between us. So before He could create distance I chose to go ahead and attempt to distance myself. I stopped trying to pursue relationship with Him, stopped having conversations with Him, and went on my life covered in shame because that’s how I thought God saw me. I still performed the rituals I had developed habits before simply to maintain my status and rank.

It wasn’t until several years later when I was a lot older that I had an encounter with God that began the process of restoring connection.

I was almost seventeen and I was invited to go to a worship night of a well-known group that writes and produces many of the worship songs we sing in contemporary churches today. At the time I was a worship leader (I actually viewed my position as more of a karaoke gig since my relationship with God at the time was frail. No one knew though because I became a master of performance.) That night I was invited to meet Holy Spirit, the third part of the trinity that I never had much understanding of. Even though I was scared of restoring any connection with God because of the fear of never being good enough, I was intrigued by this part of Him that I had never seen or been taught about before. That night I felt the tangible presence of God in a way I had never experienced before. I felt like literal electricity running through every part of my body, not in a painful way but in a way that was supernatural and revealed to me just a small portion of His power. After literally singing the words “I say no to fear and say yes to Love” I pushed aside every mentality that I had developed and everything that I had previously believed about God and said “I don’t understand you and I know I can never be good enough, but if you want me you can have me.” In that moment, even though I knew about Holy Spirit from a young age, it was like I met Him for the very first time.

That night began the several-year journey of re-discovering who God is, and who I am because of Him.

Over the last four years He revealed to me the false ideas and theology I had created around Him and combated these things with the simple truth I believed as a young innocent child: He loves me, He is for me and not against me. Romans (especially chapter 8) became a favorite passage of mine as I read and reread it, discovering new things about His grace and love given to me. They weren’t things I had to strive or perform for, I didn’t have to do anything to earn them. Just as a parent gives gifts to their children, God gave these things to me, and He’s not about to remove them either!

I also discovered that in the kingdom distance is a lie. It’s impossible for there to be any distance between me and the Father. Distance is a lie the enemy simply used to confuse me to thinking that whenever I did something wrong and made a mistake, it was too much for God to handle and He couldn’t be near me. When the truth is that when I messed up, God came even more close in those times. God was never intimidated by my messes and failures because He is so much greater than them, and those things have already been defeated and nailed to the cross. Distance actually goes against everything He is and everything He fought for. How could I possibly think that after all Jesus went through- the rejection, betrayals, brutal beatings, and horrendous death- that He would do all that just to separate Himself from me whenever I messed up? The moment He took His last breath the veil in the temple was torn, symbolizing that it was finished- there was never to be any more distance between humanity and the Father. God was never a distant Father, instead He took those opportunities when I messed up to draw close and remind me of who I am and who I’m destined to be because of who He sees I am.

It was in this journey that I began to stop working for identity and begin working from it.

Everything that I did when I was younger that came from striving, came from striving because I no longer knew my identity as a daughter who was loved by her Father. When I actually discovered that my identity was always found in Him and who He says I am, I began to realize that He has seated me up in heavenly places with Christ (Ephesians 2:6) and because of that I am royalty and have already been crowned righteous and pure in His sight. And because I have been seated in heavenly places with Christ I can work from heavenly places with Him, not for earth to go to heaven but for heaven to come down to earth.

As I began to discover more of His goodness I also discovered more of His heart for mankind. How He desires for them to also experienced restored connection with Him. How He wants to heal, restore, and set free those who are sick and oppressed. How He wants to plunder hell populate heaven with His beloved children. I saw Him move in ways that were outside of the boxes I had previously put Him in. I began to see people healed from various ailments, from legs growing out, to tumors shrinking, to fevers breaking, to blood disorders coming to alignment with the Kingdom, and hundred more. I began to see people who were oppressed by demonic powers set free by God’s omnipotence. I began to se people encounter God’s love for them revealed by the simple gospel.

His love story He’s written out to us is simple. It’s all about revelation, restoration, and reconnection. Distance goes against all these things, which is why distance is not something found in the heart of God. The question is are you willing for Him to reveal Himself to you in ways that are outside of the boxes built by mindsets about Him?