H,
It is hard to carve the role
of intimacy out of the culture of fear. We are told we are to fear God for His
severity and appease Him for His goodness. Of course there are many reasons
this makes no sense. First of the all the root word “fear” as used here is more
akin to acknowledgement, cognisance or respect than fear. It is more like
saying “trust” than “shiver before”. And it is not to stroke some universe building
ego. He does not feed on His children. All instructions to “fear” God are from
a place of peace. The idea is that you are better off if you do. It is for your
benefit. It is you that will move up. He remains eternally unmoved by anything.
The second point is that
there is nothing we are told to do that is outside His own nature. He only asks
us to be more like Him. To make this point, He came down. He came to show us
this original intent. He does not tell us to be selfless so He can be selfish. Claims
that God cares for nothing but His impersonal “Will” make no sense at all.

The God we can all get into
is beyond the stoic representations of Old Testament interpretations or the
closer inflections of New Testament prophecies. There is a vastness there that
no sixty six books can truly capture. That we are to see Him in there as a
guide to a very narrow path does not mean that He is bound within those pages. He
is bound by nothing. We are the ones that need to walk the narrow path. In Him
it becomes a wide path to keep us from slipping. In Him we become eternal
beings of inherent being. This is how we must see ourselves now. This is how we
live out of our hungry hearts. We are eternal beings of inherent value loved by
the creator of everything.