Between Him and Me – by Rene Milner

“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1, ESV).

Why do we seek blessing from the LORD and not accept that He is the one that strikes us down? Whenever there is insult or injury in our lives we blame our enemy or we blame ourselves. We think that God only does what we like (We call it good) and all the stuff we don’t like (we call it evil) Satan is responsible for. I would submit that all things come from the hand of the Father and are predesigned to work for our best, which is to bring us to a true knowledge of Him and an accurate view of ourselves. In this, to bring us to repentance and thus restore us to a right relationship to Him. And through it all bringing more and more glory to Him.

Additionally, I think the word “relationship” has fallen on hard times. In our current narcissistic culture, we look at a word and think “What’s in it for me?” We look at relationship and think how are we in a relationship with God. Is He my Father, my Buddy, my Savior……etc.? Relationship properly understood would be “How do I relate to God?” What position am I in when it comes to the Creator of the universe? “Relatively” speaking then, who am I and more importantly who is God?

As soon as we have a correct view of these two things, we are awestruck and driven to our knees. In truth our feeble minds can’t fully comprehend it. This is a blessing because I believe if we saw the true picture of our depravity (the heart is deceitfully wicked beyond all cure, who can know it?) and of God’s greatness we would not just fall on our knees we would fall down dead. Of course the wages of sin (any sin) is death and rightly so. We are only protected for a time by the blindness of our own understanding. The gracious God, slowly allows us to see the depth of our own position by giving us sickness (do we do well at comforting the sick?), poverty (do we do well at attending the poor?), greed (do we do well at giving all we can?). The list can go on and on.

“…if we saw the true picture of our depravity and of God’s greatness we would not just fall on our knees we would fall down dead.”

As He peels back our misunderstanding, we sink lower and lower. At the same time, He graciously gives us increasing glimpses of His magnitude. We begin to understand the vastness of the universe, the complexity of life and the mercy of Him who see us correctly and sustains our life beyond reason anyway. As we see the two more and more accurately, and the gulf that is between them, we cannot help but sink into a helpless depressed state. Who can salvage us from such a position? We are so far off the mark.