Who is God?

Intimacy is a word that keeps playing over in my heart the past several weeks. I know so many truths about the gospel. I know the right scripture to repeat to myself and to others as well as what to say when a friend needs counsel. Words are my thing; I love words and using them to make an impact. But the scary truth I keep trying to burry is that I don't really know God. 

Many times lately I have thought "If only I could have the relationship with Him that I did two years ago" or "I need to figure out how to get back to the intimacy I shared with Jesus when all I cared about was HIm." Yes, there was a time when I could go for a walk just to talk with Jesus and to simply love being with Him. I knew what was "right" and what was "wrong" and I lived for the "right things."

The truth is I knew intimacy with a God I had created. After the box I put Him in was destroyed the intimacy was smothered as well. Another turning point in my life where God says, "Will you still choose to follow me?" Except this time it left me with a painful question of Is God good to me? He didn't do what I asked, He did not follow the plan I had mapped out.

I've tried to change my actions when it was my heart that wouldn't surrender to the unknown of a God bigger than I could create. I feared a God I couldn't control, one I couldn't predict or plan for.

How could I maintain my appearance of a girl in love with Jesus if my quiet time was a chore to complete every morning? When did looking like I had it all together become more important than being broken before an all-knowing Father? The conviction that follows these questions makes me want to cringe at who I so easily became. I don't want to hurt, I want things to go as I have planned, and ultimately I love myself more than I love a Jesus far bigger than I can imagine. 

But this is where He meets me. In Genesis, after Hagar had become pregnant with Abram's child, she fled the affliction she was faced with. Her words struck me as so comforting, "You are a God of seeing... Truly here I have seen him who looks after me. (Genesis 16:13)" I am so overwhelmed with how sweet our God is. He sees me and says, look at the birds in the sky and the flowers in the ground "...God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you." (Matthew 6:30) Not only does He see my brokenness but He welcomes it and says, "Hey Morgan, let me clothe you with my righteousness. You are enough because I am enough for you." 

He sees me, knows me, and is asking for me to trust Him. To surrender to the unknown of who He is as God while growing intimately more in love with the parts of his character he chooses to reveal each day. 

"But death was necessary for this prayer to be answered. To find Him, I had to let go of me." -Sara Hagerty (Every Bitter Thing is Sweet)