“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.”

Of my five daughters, the oldest four starred, to one degree or another, in soccer.  Jessica, the youngest, went into Little League baseball when a friend down the street asked her to play with her.  “My dad told me I had to play on a team sport,” her friend began.  “I don’t want to play football or soccer.  So that leaves baseball.  Would you play with me if I joined a team?”  Jess agreed. And much to our surprise, she became the only all-star on a boy’s team in the three county area for two years straight!  Now she’s shining at girls’ softball and turning heads as we hear of scholarship possibilities.  She’s only 12.

I tell this story certainly not to brag but to segue to a point.  Jess was over at another teammate’s house when her dad — one of the coaches — was trying to make a point with her daughter (aren’t dads pretty much the same?!).  So he asked Jess, “When you’re on the field and people are yelling at you, do you hear them?”  “O, yeah,” she replied.  “But do you listen to them?” he probed.  “No,” she said.  “Why not? Whose voice do you listen to?” he continued.  “My dad’s,” she said immediately.  “And why do you listen to your dad’s voice?” “Because he loves me,” she replied matter-of-factly.  He was trying to use Jess as an example to his daughter for her to listen to him like Jess listened to me.  His daughter was not impressed.

While I am close with all my kids, baseball, and now softball, is something I share uniquely with Jess.  I carry her gear bag to games and joke that I want to be her manager when I grow up.  However you call it — close, near, tight, together — it’s what we share, and we both love it.  That is the picture of the most important aspect of what the Bible calls nearness or being near: relational proximity.

The first time we see the word near used in the Bible is at the burning bush.  Not surprisingly, God told Moses, “Do not come any closer” (or as the NKJV says, “Do not draw near”).  Never sugarcoating sin, God wanted Moses to have a healthy respect for him first before drawing him close.  Adam’s failure in the garden insured that no one would ever be able to enter God’s presence on his or her own merits.  With what Moses would be facing, God’s holiness and power would need to be gripping.  Only after the 10 plagues, the Red Sea and desert crossings do we see Moses going “up to God” on the mountain (Exodus 19:3).  This was similarly a unique experience.  No one else on the planet shared it.

Likewise unique was Israel’s experience: “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7).  We might call this “covenantal nearness”, as the apostle Paul taught: “[Jesus] came and preached peace to you who were far away [Gentiles] and peace to those who were near [covenantally — the Jews]” (Ephesians 2:17).  Most people blur the omnipresent nearness of God (Acts 17:27) by false religious notions and with lesser gods.

In the Old Testament, any time you read about God being near, it is almost always attached to a move God makes toward us.  “Yet you are near, O Lord, and all your commands are true” (Psalm 119:151) links God’s nearness with the revelation of his will.  Isaiah 46:13 and 51:5 speak of God’s righteousness drawing near.  Later he says the Sovereign Lord who vindicates him is near (50:8).  That is why Isaiah compels his readers to “seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near” (55:6).  In this case, near means available and willing.  But to make sure that his nearness doesn’t turn into a kind of “hey, dude” kind of relationship with God, he adds, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways” (v. 8).  No wonder Psalms say, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (145:18) and “it is good to be near to God” (73:28).  “Earth has nothing I desire besides you” (v. 25).

In the New Testament, the historical reality of Jesus’ drawing near to us is unmistakable: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Isaiah’s predicted salvation became the benchmark for all time.  On the basis of a “better hope…we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19), but so much more intimate and personal than Israel ever had. Thus James tells us to “come near to God and he will come near to you” (4:8) because he already walked our dusty paths.  You don’t need to climb a mountain like Moses.  Do you desire him enough to draw near?