Drawing Nearer

Drawing nearer in the storm

“Jesus Draw Me Ever Nearer.” One of my favorite worship songs. We first sang it in church when I was going through a tough time.

The initial plea: “Jesus draw me ever nearer as I labor through the storm.” I felt like I was lost in the darkness of a raging storm, alone in the middle of nowhere with no sense of direction, being drenched and blinded by the downpour and blown about by the wind. Laboring hard but not getting anywhere.

I needed Jesus to draw me nearer to Him. I was too helpless to approach Him in my own strength.

Over the next few years, as I sang that song in my head in difficult situations, I took the prayer to mean that special kind of drawing me closer temporarily to comfort me in a time of pain. Like a child sitting in her mother’s lap after she’s fallen and bumped her knee. When the storm passed, I wouldn’t need that same kind of help.

But recently, as I thought about the words, I realized that God’s been answering that prayer in an even bigger way.

Remaining nearer

A loving mother snuggles a crying child in her lap. When he’s feeling better, she encourages him to go back to playing with his toys. Even though he’s physically more distant from his mom, he remains just a little bit closer to her emotionally because of that moment of snuggling.

In the same way, even after my need for comforting has passed, my relationship with God remains stronger than it was before He drew me into His lap. Having a fresh taste of His nurturing love, I’m more aware of His presence more of the time. I know Him better, I understand Him better, I see the beauty of His character more clearly, than I ever did before.

When it comes to thinking about how God grows me through suffering, my thoughts have a tendency to go in two main directions. One, there are many lessons that I couldn’t learn any other way. As a fallen human being, I can’t understand the most important things in life when I have an easy time of it. I need the pain.

Two, one of the primary purposes behind my suffering is to enable me to minister to others. God comforts me so that I can comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:4). Suffering is intended to take my eyes off of myself.

Both of these ideas are biblical and important. But that’s not the whole story.

I get so focused on how God’s comfort makes a painful moment more tolerable that I don’t even think about the long-term effects of that comfort. The drawing ever nearer, not just for the moment.

Being comforted builds a bond that doesn’t simply go away when I no longer need that personal sense of comfort. And each time He comforts me, that bond grows stronger.

Strength for the future

Sometimes, when a child who’s been abused is fostered or adopted by new parents, she becomes clingy. She runs to them over and over again, seeking comfort in what might seem to be trivial situations. She has a hard time venturing out into the big bad world.

Although it might seem like an unhealthy need for attention, this behavior has a purpose. Each moment of comfort draws her nearer to her new parents, not just temporarily, but for a lifetime. Each moment of comfort builds a greater bond that keeps on growing until the child has the strength to play with friends for hours without having to continually turn back to her family. And that’s a good thing.

She isn’t cutting herself off from them. She’s not declaring her complete independence. She’s carrying that comfort and that bond with her as she stumbles out into the wider world. A world that she’s meant to be a part of.

In the same way, God’s comfort strengthens me, not just for the moment when I feel it so intensely, not just to give me a temporary high that I can treasure, but for my long-term growth. When I’m not feeling the immediate need for His comfort, that doesn’t mean that I’m walking away from Him or declaring my independence from Him. It means that His comfort has done the work that it was intended to do.

Because I was comforted for a moment, I’m now strengthened for a lifetime. I can venture out into the world having that greater bond to my Lord. I can love others better and serve Him more effectively.

My life has been tough in certain ways. I almost had to laugh when a woman at church commented to me a few years ago that we’ve reached that age when life starts getting harder. Starts? I hit that point in my early thirties. Didn’t have to wait till my sixties, like I was apparently supposed to do.

So I’ve thought a lot about suffering. I tend to think that the most biblical view is one that confirms that growth comes through pain. It hurts, God gets us through it, and we learn some valuable truths that we wouldn’t pick up any other way. I knew that, with each lesson, I would grow in my understanding of God’s love. I knew that He would comfort me in my trials. And that I could look back on those times of comfort to provide hope when the next trial came.

But I didn’t really think about the ongoing effect of that comfort in drawing me nearer to Him. I’ve sung so many times, “Jesus draw me ever nearer,” without recognizing until now that that’s exactly what He does. His comfort doesn’t just have a short-term effect. A moment of comfort draws me nearer for ever.