Discovering Relationship

My life changed when I learned what it really meant to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I grew up in a decent Christian community, with parents who love the Lord and have Him at the center of their marriage, and yet somehow growing up, I missed it. Somehow, without even knowing it, I put God in a box. I had created a box for Him that limited my belief in how He could move, how He could speak. 

I grew up going to church every Sunday, memorized bible verses, sang the songs, and later got into the habit of reading my bible everyday.. and yet somehow when I prayed, deep down I doubted if He could actually hear me, and better yet…respond. An analogy He revealed to me as I reflected on that time in my life is when I prayed, it was almost as if I was sending Him an email. When I prayed, I didn’t really expect to get a response back, not quickly at least. This wasn’t because I didn’t think He could hear me but because I would tell with myself things like, “God gets so many prayers in one day, mine’s not as important,” and was convinced of the lie that God didn’t have time for me because He has so many other people in His hand. The truth is, I didn’t know how to hear Him, so how would I have known if He responded in the first place. I realize now, I never truly knew Him like I may have thought I did.

When I came to college I encountered true Godly community. People who talked about God all the time, spent devoted time with Him everyday, walked their faith out in their words and actions, and what got me…they claimed they could hear Him. I was intrigued, I was curious and hungry to finally hear an answer, to finally face the challenge of meeting the man I talked to all these years but never heard an audible, obvious response back from. It took me a while to figure out what I was doing differently, because on the outside it appeared I did all the same religious, routine things as my friends. What I was missing…knowing His character and inviting Him into my life—all of it. That took a while and was not without discomfort at times. To do so, I started incorporating new things into my time with the Lord, like using commentary and a study bible as well as a notebook, a place to annotate and write while I opened His Word. These things aren’t at all essential to hearing God’s voice but they helped me facilitate a shift in my time meeting with Him. The most important shift I made was being more intentional in my prayer and actually asking Him, inviting Him to spend time with me. The Lord heard my eagerness, my hunger and He met me in it. He met and helped me understand what I was reading, He helped me understand Him…all I had to do was ask. 

It could have been easy to confine God to a slightly bigger box–than I had Him in before, after He met and helped me in my time with Him–but I was not going to make that mistake again. When I asked, I didn’t just invite him into my bible time with Him, but into all parts of my everyday life. God’s power to move and speak is not meant to be confined to a box of any size, He wants every part of us. He wants a relationship. Similar to our human relationships, relationship with Him takes time to grow, time to build trust, time to get to know each other’s character. Our relationship grew because I fell in love with His word. Through His Word I learned his character. And by His character I learned His voice–how to hear and see Him speak. I say ‘see’ because God speaks in so many ways. Sometimes for me it's an analogy and words, but other times it's a picture or a memory He brings to mind and teaches through, it's not always audible words–that’s just another box to put Him in. 

God will never fit in a box. He is too big, too powerful, and His understanding is beyond all human comprehensibility (Psalm 147:5). We don’t need to limit Him and how He can move because His way is better, He is all-knowing, His way will always be better and the way to accept that is to trust Him, to have a relationship with Him. It will change your life, just like it did mine.