Closeness · 21 days
Life with God
Deepen your everyday closeness with God.
Who it’s for
Prayer and stillness to draw closer to God.
- Anxiety and peace — Cast your cares, trust and rest in God.
- Grief and comfort — Company for the days of longing and pain.
- For women — Healing, courage and closeness to God, day by day.
- Grow in faith — Prayer, the Word and consecration, one day at a time.
What you’ll grow in
How the journey is organized
Week 1 · Prayer
Drawing near to God in the secret place.
- Day 1The first stepJames 4:8
- Day 2Before dawnMark 1:35Available in the app
- Day 3The inner roomMatthew 6:6Available in the app
- Day 4Our FatherMatthew 6:9Available in the app
- Day 5Your will be doneMatthew 26:39Available in the app
- Day 6Today’s breadMatthew 6:11Available in the app
- Day 7Pouring out your heartPsalms 62:8Available in the app
Week 2 · Stillness
Quieting yourself to hear the gentle voice.
- Day 8Be still, and knowPsalms 46:10Available in the app
- Day 9Under the juniper tree1 Kings 19:5Available in the app
- Day 10A still small voice1 Kings 19:12Available in the app
- Day 11At the Lord’s feetLuke 10:39Available in the app
- Day 12The good partLuke 10:41-42Available in the app
- Day 13The quieted soulPsalms 131:2Available in the app
- Day 14In quietness and confidenceIsaiah 30:15Available in the app
Week 3 · Word and presence
Remaining in him every day.
- Day 15A lamp to my feetPsalms 119:105Available in the app
- Day 16Day and nightPsalms 1:2Available in the app
- Day 17The burning heartLuke 24:32Available in the app
- Day 18Remaining in the vineJohn 15:5Available in the app
- Day 19Present everywherePsalms 139:7Available in the app
- Day 20The presence that goes with youExodus 33:14Available in the app
- Day 21One thing I have askedPsalms 27:4Available in the app
Day 1 · The first step
Today’s reading: James 4:1-10
1Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 3You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? 6But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
James 4:1-10 · World English Bible
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Context
Since the earliest centuries, the letter of James has been attributed to James, the brother of the Lord and leader of the church in Jerusalem, and it was written to Jewish Christians scattered outside Judea. It is one of the most practical letters in the New Testament. In chapter 4, James deals with quarrels within the community, with disordered desires, with prayers made from the wrong motives and with friendship with the world; then he calls for humble repentance with a series of commands: be subject to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord.
James wrote to Christians scattered across many places, and chapter 4 opens with a hard question: where do the wars and fights among you come from? He points inward, to desires that wage war in the heart. It is a religious community, but a divided one; people who pray but, as he puts it, ask wrongly. It isn’t a very different picture from ours. We do things for God, we talk about God, and sometimes we go weeks without really being with him.
It is in this setting, after firm words about pride and friendship with the world, that the letter’s most tender invitation appears: draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. James doesn’t end his rebuke with a closed door. He ends it with a way back. Just before, he reminds us that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Drawing near begins with humility: admitting that we need him.
Notice the order of the verse. You take a step, and he comes. That doesn’t mean God is far away waiting to be reached, or that his coming near depends on you deserving it. The whole Bible shows a God who takes the initiative: he looks for Adam in the garden, he sends the Son, he runs to meet the son who comes home, like the father in the parable in Luke 15. But intimacy is a relationship, and a relationship has two sides that move toward each other.
The text also speaks of cleansed hands and purified hearts, of those who are double-minded. Drawing near to God isn’t only about feeling something beautiful; it is letting him deal with what is divided in us. No one has to clean themselves up alone before coming. We come precisely to be cleansed. Confession is part of the first step; it isn’t a condition for taking it.
Maybe you are starting this journey tired of beginnings. You’ve tried to read the whole Bible in a year, you’ve promised to pray every morning, you’ve abandoned plans on day three. This journey doesn’t ask for heroics. It asks for one small, honest step, repeated. These will be twenty-one days of steps: prayer in the first week, silence in the second, the Word and God’s presence in the third.
Today the step is only this: stop, admit that you want to be closer, and tell God so, sincerely. You don’t need beautiful words. He isn’t measuring how far you’ve come or counting the times you gave up. He is coming to meet you.
To reflect onGod draws near to those who draw near to him. What simple step will you take toward him today?
To live it today
- Choose a set time for the next 21 days (10 or 15 minutes is enough) and set a reminder on your phone called “Meeting with God.”
- Read James 4:7-10 quietly and turn each command into a prayer: “Lord, I submit to you… I draw near to you… I humble myself before you.”
- Before bed, write in one sentence what you hope for from this journey, and keep the paper to reread on day 21.
More questions
- What has been dividing your heart lately, to the point that God seems far away?
- When in your life did you feel closest to God? What was different about that time?
- What small step, possible even today, would show that you want to draw near to him?
Prayer
Adoration
Holy God, so near, you are greater than everything I know, and yet you bend down to listen to whoever seeks you. I worship you because you are not a distant God, but the One who comes to meet us.
Confession
I confess that my heart is often divided. I talk about you, but I go days without being with you. Forgive my pride and my hurry, and purify what wavers in me.
Thanksgiving
Thank you for giving grace to the humble, and for keeping the way back always open. Thank you for this chance to begin again with you.
Supplication
Help me to be faithful over these twenty-one days. When I forget, remind me; when I lose heart, call me again. I draw near to you today: come and meet me too. In Jesus’ name, amen.
To memorize
You shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.
Read also: Hebrews 4:16 · Psalms 145:18 · Luke 15:20
Continue in the app: days 2 to 21
Each day brings a reading, a devotional, a guided prayer, a journal question and a verse to memorize. Pick up where you left off.
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Keep exploring
Bible verses on this theme
Other journeys
- Peace in the midst of anxiety 14 days
- Courage 7 days
- Learning to Pray: The Lord’s Prayer 7 days
- Faith & Finances 21 days
- Wounds God Heals 14 days
- Family on Purpose 14 days
For your everyday
Scripture on this page: World English Bible (public domain). How we write the journeys