When the boys were very small, if they got a cold they would inevitably be snotty. Sometimes, Ethan would be aware that he was snotty. He might ask for a tissue, he might pick his nose and then say ‘eww, bogey mummy, you have it’… there were several times when he would announce ‘Mummy, my bogey has gone’ – which indicated that he’d wiped it, flicked it or snotted it out somewhere, only to be left for us to find later. However, there were other times when he didn’t know how snotty he was – this was certainly the case with Micah – as a baby he would know that he didn’t feel great, power across the floor as best as he could, get to my feet and wait for me to pick him up.  And as he snuggled in for a cuddle, wiping his head back and forth, snot would be rubbed into my clothes.  Lovely.  

But. As his Mum, I didn’t mind. Because I love him and because I knew I had the power to wipe the snot away.

“For our offences are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us.  Our offences are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities.” (Isaiah 59:12)

Sin is like snot when you’re a toddler. It is ever with you. It can be tempting to start looking around at others and think they’re a little snottier than we are. That their sin is obvious. Terrible. There’s no way we would sin like that… but 1 John 1:8-9 says,

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Ok, so, if we’re all snotty, which we are, really snotty, then how is it we can actually come close to God? Colossians 1:22 tells us this –

“But now he has reconciled you…”

To reconcile is to

1)      re-establish a close relationship

2)      settle or resolve (a quarrel or difference)

3)      bring (oneself) to accept

4)      make compatible or consistent (two things that are apparently conflicting)

We have been ‘reconciled by Christ’s physical body through death’.  This is the ultimate of God coming close.  He’s come to us.  Jesus came close… so that we can come close.

Is it something we’ve done?  No.

Is it something we can earn?  No.

Is it something we deserve?  No.

God decided to re-establish a close relationship with us through Jesus’ death.  In the story of the snot – that is God totally wiping our noses for us.  I wouldn’t say to my kids, “whoa, hang on a minute, you can only come for a cuddle once you’ve wiped your nose, washed your face and cleaned yourself up….”  No, the first thing I do – especially when they’re feeling ill – is to scoop them up and cuddle them.  I’ll deal with the snot later, I don’t expect them to be fully grown adults and deal with their snot issues themselves.  All I want, ALL I want, is for them to come close, snuggle down, and rest – secure in the knowledge that they are loved, they are safe, and they are with me.

Zechariah 1:3 says,

“…’Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you’…”

God is not going to smother us.  If I see one of my kids tired, unwell, snotty on the floor, I’m not going to run at them and smother them.  I’m going to allow them to come to me if they want to.  When my babies were feeling hungry, tired, generally vulnerable, if they saw me, or even heard my voice, they would crawl to me until they reached my feet and then they would wait, knowing that I would stoop down and do the work of picking them up and wiping their nose.  They moved.  They would ‘return to me’.

The way that we crawl to God is surrender.  It’s finally acknowledging that we can’t do life in our own strength.  That we are not all powerful, all knowing, all seeing.  We don’t have all the answers, we don’t get it right all the time.  We are not super holy. 

God is not expecting us to deal with all our sin before we start crawling towards him.  He’s ok with us struggling with issues.  He’s ok with us acknowledging we find things hard.  Flip, He’s even ok with us being angry with Him.  God the Father just wants us to remember that because of Jesus, the work of reconciling is already done.  Because of Jesus, we CAN come close, we can be real.  Because of Jesus, we can come to God, with our snot, and let him deal with it.