What is it about our brokenness that demands buffers and barriers between us and God?  Throughout the Bible I see a God who seeks to interact with people in intimate and personal ways.  Not in “Special Places” but in a wine press, a ditch, in prisons, and in the workplace.   Yes, God provided forms of mediation, but those are for our needs not His limitations.My sons are 11,9, and 3.  At this age they do not fully know and understand all that goes on in the worlds of their parents.  In many ways we live in very different worlds.  On the surface, my youngest son is focused on things that have little to do with my interest. However; several times a week we cuddle together at watch his “vidgios.”  These times watching his “vidgios” allow him to connect with me and allows me to engage him.  These videos serve as a form of mediation...a point of contact.Now someone may think it’s just about watching “vidgios.”  But what is going on in those weird “vidgios” is the least of my focus.  When I can surrender my selfishness and be available in the moment, something much deeper happens.  I find myself enjoying holding him in my arms, watching his eyes light up when he sees something cool.  I love when I feel the rigidness of his muscles from his frenetic pace melt into me and relax.At some point, this boy who seems to always be on the go will turn to me at say, “Dad, we’re cuddle buddies.”  And in that moment it is not about the videos, but real relational connection.  How unfortunate it would be if he thought our time together was all about the “vidgios.”  And perhaps he does.  But reality is that I use the “vidgios” as a way for him to engage me at a relational level...they are a form of mediation.As a response to the rebellion and divorce between humanity and God in the garden, God in his infinite grace and wisdom knew/knows humanity needs forms of mediation to engage Him and to come to know him.  But one of the consistent problems in humanity's brokenness is we mistake the form of mediation, for Him, and the gifts given to bring us into deeper communion with God, often become buffers.This allows us to determine, often unconsciously, the perimeters of our relationship.  Amazingly, and unfortunately, God honors those boundaries...for now.  In my journey I have limited God to practices, times, dates, and places.  Embracing a secular and spiritual divide, which allowed me to place boundaries on Him.  Often believing our uncommon creator would not be honored in my common places.  But inviting God into our “common” places is where we discover  the depths He is willing to go to commune with us.  And the more we invite Him into the corners and shadows of our lives...we begin to discover that there is nothing “common” about us.  That the creator and sustainer of all life, wills to do life with you.  He wills for you to discover that all creation points to Him.And perhaps while watching a sunrise, a flower bloom, hear the rain fall, feel acceptance from another person, or reading scripture, you will discover that those moments are more than the focus of your attention.  But that their is something more going on in that space.It is in that space God is drawing you to Himself, and in the peace born out of the perspective that only awareness of His presence can bring...you turn to your Father and say.... “Were cuddle buddies.”