Monday marked eighteen years that my wife and I have been married. I would be lying if I said that every year passed in perfect peace. In those eighteen years we have experienced three ministry transitions, three pregnancies, a few health concerns, seminary and now a teenage daughter. That is not to say that the years have all been bad either. We are blessed with three great daughters, we have seen God do things that many people have only heard about, and we have grown closer together through the highs and the lows. But, like everything else in life, good relationships come at a price and that price is time. I’m not talking about the time that you endure waiting to see a doctor. I’m talking about the kind of time that you spend preparing a sermon, building a piece of furniture, working in a garden, or preparing a delicious meal. I’m talking about invested time. Whit and I have invested a lot of time with each other, and it has paid off in a relationship that neither of us would trade for anything or anyone else on earth. But, even on our best day, we know that we each come in second in the other person’s life next to our relationship with God.
To a lot of people that might sound strange, but the fact remains that God desires an intimate relationship with us and we should reciprocate that desire as well. Unfortunately, many who identify themselves as Christians do not have such a relationship with God or even a desire for such a relationship. Instead, God remains more of a tradition; someone we encounter only superficially through a visit to a local place of gathering that is often identified as a church. There we hear songs about God. A minister may deliver a sermon that might make reference to God but often tends to be more of a moralistic monologue designed to help people make their lives better. We may even have friends there that we look forward to seeing and who hold a special place in our life. Yet when it’s all over, we leave our relationship with God at the door of the worship center where we will pick it back up the next time we are there. For many of us we have nothing more than a Sunday morning relationship with God. If this is true, can there be any question as to why a relationship with God that has the preeminent place above all other relationships in a person’s life seems strange to so many, including those who claim to be Christians?
Can you imagine a marriage where the only contact between the husband and wife came in the form of occupying the same space with minimal conversation for only one hour a week? Most would say that such an arrangement could only be qualified as a marriage in the legal sense because there is no real relationship there at all. Many would argue that for a relationship to be characterized as a healthy marriage there should be a solid investment of time with one another. Not just time spent enduring one another’s company, but real invested time. This is the currency of a relationship and it is just a true in a person’s relationship with God as it is in a marriage relationship. So how is a person supposed to spend time with God when He can’t be seen or touched? You could ask someone whose spouse is a long-haul truck driver or a member of the military. While I can’t speak from the perspective of that particular type of relationship, I can speak on what it takes to have a relationship with God, and in both situations it takes an investment of relationship currency. It takes meaningful time.
Just like in a marriage, a relationship with God requires two primary elements: love and communication. I guess that’s why the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to compare the relationship between Christ and the church to that of a husband and wife (Ephesians 5:22-33). In our relationship with God, there has to be a mutual expression of love. God has already done that by sending His Son to die for our sins (John 3:16; Romans 5:8) and He continues to demonstrate His love for us through the ministry of His Holy Spirit as we progress in our relationship with Him. The question becomes, “How do we demonstrate a love for God in return?” To put it in a single word: worship.
Worship takes on many forms. It can involve singing, but it doesn’t have to. Worship is primarily our best expression of love and appreciation to God for who He is and what He has done for us. Oswald Chambers may have said it best when he wrote in his devotion, My Utmost for His Highest, “Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.” Worship is showing God how much you love and trust Him by giving back to God an offering of something precious to you. The most common form is through tithes and offerings, but we should not overlook an offering of time to God. There is nothing so precious to us as time, because we know that we have it in such limited quantities. What then could be a more precious gift to God, than setting aside time each day just for Him where we spend time relating to Him or spend time serving Him in some way? This leads us to the next element of a healthy relationship with God and that is communication.
A person may ask, “If we can’t see God and we can’t hear God, how are we supposed to communicate with God?” Just because we can’t hear an audible voice from God, does not mean that He does not communicate with us. The primary way that God communicates with us is through the Bible. The Bible is the revelation of God’s will for humanity. In it He communicates His expectations for us, but He also communicates the abundance of grace and mercy that He has to offer us. That’s just the beginning. The Bible is also full of wisdom for everyday life. A great example of this is found in the book of Proverbs. Another way that God communicates to us, though to a lesser degree, is through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. But, how can a person know if they are being prompted by the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit will never prompt us to speak or act in a way that contradicts the Bible.
However, God doesn’t just want us to hear from Him, He also wants to hear from us and we do that through prayer. In prayer we speak words of love and worship back to God, and we also express our needs and desires. Often the greatest need we have is for God to forgive us for our lack of attention to our relationship with Him brought on by some unconfessed sin. Prayer is not complicated. It’s just talking to God, but like worship, it requires an investment of time. However, when we are willing to make that investment, the reward is a closer and deeper relationship with God than anything we have ever experienced.
So, maybe your relationship with God has lost the spark and excitement that it once had. I promise, all it needs is an investment of the currency of relationships. It just needs an investment of time. If we will do that, we will find that God is ready to meet us halfway (James 4:8).
Scripture-Driven Life 