Recently, I found myself sitting in a small chapel at a retreat center in Rapid City, South Dakota. I was there to preach at a local youth conference and the night before the conference, I was spending time with the Lord to prepare my heart for the event. As I was praying, I was experiencing a deep level of inadequacy going before the Lord. I found myself experiencing a fear, not a right fear of the Lord, but a fear that the Lord wouldn’t speak to me–that if I went before him and asked for what I needed, I wouldn’t get it or if I asked to hear him speak, he would withhold himself from me.

Maybe, in your own relationship with God, you have experienced this skittishness in approaching him or a hesitation to come before him with all that you need and all that you are. As I sat and prayed, the Holy Spirit led me to Galatians 4:1-4, which reads:

“…the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”

As I read this passage, the Holy Spirit began to show me that I was approaching Jesus a slave, not an heir. In my prayer, I was shying away from boldly approaching his throne because I was acting out of a place of slavery, not from a place of sonship. The phrase “because you are a son” jumped off the page to me. The Father was showing me that he desired to speak to me, to pour out his spirit upon me, to show up in my preaching, to satisfy my needs – because I am a daughter! We can approach God because of this simple truth: he has sent his Son to bring us into his very family. As you go to pray, as you walk through your day with the Lord, he is inviting you to speak with him, to approach him, and to ask for what you need with great faith because you are a son or daughter. Because of what he has done and who you are to him, you can go before him with confidence!

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Truth from Scripture:

It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8:16-17

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Wisdom from the Saints:

“It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world.”

// St. Aloysius Gonzaga