Relationship First

Several years ago, I was at a point where my relationship with God was dry. I was still living for Him on the outside, but I wasn’t feeling close to Him on the inside. It started with my time of prayer feeling distant. That wasn’t so surprising to me, because I had never felt incredibly intimate with God, even though I had a quiet prayer time almost every day. The second thing that happened was that I lost my passion in worship. I would stand and sing, but rarely felt like I was connecting with God, or like He was connecting with my heart in those times. This was a little more concerning, because I had always really enjoyed worship. But, it still didn’t totally jar me. The big thing was when my time reading God’s word became dull. I had loved the word of God since early in my Christian life. I was in process of constant change because of the effect of the word of God in my life. So, this really worried me. Serving was the only thing that was still pretty vibrant for me; although, I’m convinced that if my intimacy with God hadn’t turned around, I soon would have been burned out on serving also.

I started to search for what might refresh my personal experience with God. I read Celebration of the Disciplines. It didn’t have much effect, because discipline was not my problem. I still had all the “disciplines” in my life; they were just dry. I read another book about some traditional ways of getting close to the Lord, The Life You’ve Always Wanted. I don’t know if it was actually something I read in that book or just a thought I had while reading the book. But, I realized that all I was doing was going through the disciplines. I wasn’t actually connecting with God. I realized that my times needed to be more focused on Him, as a person, rather than the activity I was doing. I did come up with some activities to do, but they were born out of my heart to connect with God at all costs. I decided that I was only going to do whatever actually connected me to the person of God, and not just go through the motions of “disciplines”. 

The activities I did are not the focus of the most important part of this. The realization that I needed to connect with God personally was the most important thing. But, I figure, while I’m writing I might as well tell you some of the activities I began to do that helped me get out of my rut. I began to study the word of God to give it away. I would get excited about studying the Word because of the possibility of life change that it may effect in a person I would teach it to. And of course, it would have effect on me as well.  I began to worship on my own. I value worshipping as a community of believers, but because of my role in helping to organize services I had a hard time focusing on worship. So, I began to worship on my own, at the park, in my back yard, or on a walk, and I would really connect to God and feel like I was with Him as I would really pour out my heart in worship. Maybe most significantly, I began to pray as if I was really talking to a person, and I started making a practice of trying to hear from God. Previously, I was just trying to get through my list of prayers and make sure I did it regularly. I have gone back to my prayer journal list, but now I actually connect with God while I am praying about those things, and I always try to listen.

I hope you will make connection with the Lord your number one priority, and do whatever it takes to facilitate that happening.