ACCUSE: My friend Kathy was lying on her bed dying, and she couldn’t pray about it!

GOSSIP: I know why. She told me. She said she didn’t feel right bothering God with her little problems, when God had the whole universe to worry about, and so many people were worse off than she was.

Kathy’s God was too big to be attainable, too distant to be approachable. INTIMIDATE: Isaiah says: "Have you not known?! Have you not heard?! This is the God who stretches out the heavens like a curtain! This is the God who spreads out the stars like a tent to live in!"

SEDUCE: That’s a big God, and Kathy felt too inadequate, unworthy, unimportant, too insignificant to "disturb" that big, distant God with her problems, even with her dying. I think a lot of people, for a lot of reasons, feel too inadequate, unworthy, unimportant, insignificant to "disturb" God with their problems. Especially if what they need help with is their fault. "Surely," they think, "the God who is that big, that perfect, can have no plan for guilty people."

CHALLENGE: A few weeks ago, I went to a conference at the College of Preachers in Washington, D.C. The college is on the grounds of the National Cathedral. Now, if you’ve never seen the National Cathedral, it is a huge building of gleaming stone sitting on fifty-seven acres of land. The National Cathedral has a beauty and a scale that we usually associate with European cathedrals.

The first night I was there, we finished about 9:00, and, even though it was very cold out, I decided to take a walk around the Cathedral grounds before turning in. As I was walking along the side of this massive place, I heard music. I looked up some steps and saw two massive, arched wooden doors, about twenty feet high. One of them was ajar. I went up the steps and, pushing the door further open, peeked in.

Inside was a sort of anti-room with windows that looked into the Cathedral. Through the windows, I saw at least a hundred people sitting in sections, and a woman wearing a headset directing them. It was the National Cathedral Choir, one of the most famous choirs in the country, and I had stumbled upon their practice session. Feeling somewhat sheepish (because I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there), I slipped inside and watched and listened through the windows.

Through the glass, the music was very pretty. And it was interesting to see how they took it apart, worked on the pieces, and then put it back together again.

After a while, a man, a bass, noticed me (standing there with my coat still on) and walked over and opened the door. "Would you like to come in" he asked. Embarrassment. I was caught! I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there. The Cathedral wasn’t open at that time of night. I didn’t want to distrub this great choir. "Oh, no, no, no thank you!" I stammered. He gave me an odd look, then closed the door again.

But after a while, I thought, "What the heck," so I took my coat off, quietly opened the door, and slipped inside. Inside, the music was not "pretty." It was not "interesting." It was stunning! It was magnificent! It rose up like incense. It echoed in resplendent praise off the gleaming stone of this majestic place. It was an offering to God; it was of God; my soul was embraced and enfolded, and it was glorious!

EMPOWER (QUIET): I think most of us, at some time, feel that the God of the cosmos, the God of the gleaming Cathedral, is just too big, too perfect for us to disturb. But that is not the image of God that we get from either Isaiah or Jesus. Jesus goes to Simon Peter’s house for lunch, and he is told that Peter’s mother-in-law is sick. Now, this is no big deal. She’s not dying; she’s just sick. We’ve all been sick. Flu, maybe. In a few days, she’ll be fine. It’s no big deal.

But Jesus heals her. He takes her hand and lifts her up, so that she can serve the Lord. It was no big deal. No need to disturb Jesus. But he heals her.

And Isaiah never says that the God of the cosmos is distant, or unattainable. Isaiah says, "Have you not known?! Have you not heard?! The God who stretched out the heavens like a curtain, the God who spread out the stars like a tent to live in, that God gives power to the faint, that God gives strength to the weak, that God renews the exhausted. And it is they, they, the faint, the weak, the exhausted, they who will mount up as with wings of eagles. Wings of eagles.

Jesus and Isaiah are telling us that the God who stretched out the heavens like a curtain is big enough to care passionately about our small, imperfect lives.

WELCOME: My friend Kathy felt too inadequate, unworthy, unimportant, too insignificant to enter God’s majestic, gleaming cathedral, even as she lay dying. When you think about whether you can take your little life, your little problems, your little guilts, to God, listen to what Jesus is saying to us. He’s saying, "Don’t stand outside, listening to the music through stone walls. Don’t stand just inside, listening to the music though glass windows." Jesus is saying to us, "It’s all right. It’s all right. I want you in my presence. Come in. Come in. Come all the way in. And I promise —the music will be glorious!"