THE FACES OF GOD

 Have you ever had a casual relationship with someone, such as a work acquaintance, who one day surprised you by being more vulnerable than you expected?

    Our relationships with people occur at varying degrees and on different levels, depending on a wide range of factors. They depend greatly on what we're comfortable with, how we met the person, and what our expectations are.

    When someone "crosses the line" of what we want out of a relationship, then we often don't know how to handle it. We try to control how others relate to us because of what we have experienced in previous relationships with people. And because our relationships with people are merely dim shadows of what it means to know God, we also struggle to relate to Him on a variety of  levels.
Our barriers to experiencing intimacy with the Lord are similar to the walls we put up in our human relationships. If we had a father who abandoned us or made us feel like we had to earn his love, we may not be comfortable with knowing God as our Father.

    Sometimes our unwillingness to invest time into our relationship with God prevents us from knowing Him as our intimate lover. Just as a wife must put time and effort into understanding and knowing her husband deeply, a person needs also to commit himself to deepening his relationship with God, the ultimate author of pure romance.

    As much as we shy away from God on certain levels, it's His desire that we know Him as more than our Savior, more than our Provider, more than what we've previously experienced in Him.
He wants us to know Him as our Maker, our Shepherd, our Master, our Father, our Friend, and our Lover.

............ The God of the universe wants to reveal Himself to you as a God of many faces.  His craving is that you not settle for knowing Him in part; rather, the Lord offers you a place at His buffet table. Instead of just enjoying one entrée, though, God entices you to taste and see that He—in all His roles—is good. (Psalm 34:8)

    Instead of resigning God to a box by which your past experiences have confined Him, ask Him to open your heart. Give Him your fears and insecurities. Be honest about the aspects of His character that you do not understand or the parts of  His nature to which you don't relate.

    As you surrender and invite Him to show you His fullness, God will redeem the earthly distortions that have kept you from knowing Him as He really is. You'll be able, therefore, to worship the Lord as He desires, in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24) .

Excerpted from In Touch Ministries - The Faces of God