I know a guy who really wants to be revered. His idea of reverence & respect is, “Thou shalt not disagree with me!” This guy cannot handle it when people disagree with him. When someone disagrees with this guy, he just stops talking to them. If a friend or family member exhibits raw emotion, or attempts to communicate honestly, he runs away. Subsequently, this man doesn’t have any real friends, and he has essentially estranged himself from most of his immediate family. This guy lives in a delusional echo chamber. This man’s spouse walks on eggshells around him, and simply avoids bringing up any honest thoughts and feelings with him.

Sadly, this is a very normal way to live for lots of people. It’s called PRIDE. The people who choose to live like this make no apologies! Matter-of-fact, they entrench themselves in their pride; they give no ground; they admit no wrong; they offer cheap ‘explanations’; they defend themselves with vigor; they spray accusations at others; and all-the-while they diminish the prospect of engaging in honest communication.

What about God? Certainly, if anyone could get-away-with avoiding raw emotion, and complicated relational communication, God could (if He wanted to).

Numbers 14… The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” (After this, Moses disagrees with God, and argues that God should NOT kill and disinherit all the Israelites). …I don’t know, seems pretty RAW & REAL; and relationally complicated to me.

What about the story of Hosea? Where the Lord says, “Your name is Not My People, for you are not My people, and I am not your God.” YET in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” …“Plead with your mother, plead—for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband—tell her to put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. …My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to Me, I shall not raise them up at all. BUT How can I give you up!? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within Me; My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute My burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” …I don’t know, seems pretty RAW & REAL; and relationally complicated to me.

What about when God’s people want to communicate with Him in a raw and real (and flawed, and messy) sort of way?

Psalm 13… “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” Can God actually forget us? Is this not a false accusation (is this not the epitome of irreverence!?) – to say, “How long will you forget me God!?” YET – God allows this sort of communication. Actually, God does more than merely allow it …He insists on it! God commands us to communicate with Him in this way! God says, “THIS IS REAL WORSHIP. THIS IS REAL REVERENCE! Don’t pretend you agree with Me; let’s wrestle with how you’re really feeling! Let’s get into the messiness and complexities of what you’re honestly thinking!”

God says, “I hate, I despise your decorous devotion, your shallow version of reverence, your cheap agreement! I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer Me your conservative approach to church and life, I will not accept it; and all the ways you prop up your decency, I will not look upon it. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.”

In other words, God rejects shallow reverence and superficial relationship. God is revered when we’re willing to BE RAW and REAL. God is worshiped when we engage in a relational wrestling match with Him!