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There’s this Jesus Culture song during which Kim Walker starts singing the lines:

I don’t want to talk about you
Like you’re not in the room
Want to look right at you
Want to sing right to you

I realized this morning that for twenty some years of my life,
I usually talked about God like he wasn’t in the room.
I imagined him being a sort of Casper the friendly ghost type;
almost a figment of my imagination.
Which turns out to be a pretty weak representation of who God is.
But the lines of this song resonate in my heart. 
Because I’m tired of talking about God like he’s not in the room.

I would much rather embrace the fact that He’s not only in the room
but sitting in the seat right next to me, even holding me in His own arms.

I saw some very tangible displays of God and his love this year.
(Although sometimes I have to re-convince myself

of the events and miracles I witnessed.)

And I love that God
so much more than the God I created from my own imagination.
The God that I met in 11 different countries around the world
is much more
powerful
gracious
fearful
loving
just
holy
….

By ignoring the reality of His presence, I had missed out on the intimacy of truly knowing him, as well as knowing the unimaginable depths of his love.  To take it a step further, not knowing his love, the overwhelming, tear-jerking, heart wrenching love of our Heavenly Father, makes it impossible to project his love on others.  This is why from this point on I refuse to talk about Jesus like he’s not in the room…

I need him.
I need him to be present at all times.
I need him in order to love others.
I need him in order to be sanctified.
I need him in order to believe that the world will one day be made whole again.
I need to talk about Him like he’s right next to me,
in order to believe the things I’ve seen and heard.
The more real God becomes to me,
the more I am capable of loving those around me…
which I’ve found is a risky business.
Talking to God like he’s right next to you –
singing right to him
looking right at him
is a risk worth taking.

“There is no safe investment.  To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

“I believe that the most lawless and inordinate love are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness…We shall draw nearer to God not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour.  If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it.”

C.S. Lewis