Here is something that strikes at the heart of everyone in this world.  The idea of intimacy and relationship.  What does this mean to you?  We think of love, we think of our spouses, we thing of family and friends.  Relationship is to be had all over our lives.  It took me 36 years to really learn this lesson.  To know that I was created for relationship.  Not just with my wife and kids, but with others and most particularly with God.  This is where I really want to focus today.  That relationship and intimacy that is to be had with God throughout our lives.

Did you know that we were created for relationship?  God did not create us to rule over us like a cosmic sheriff.  No…He created us for relationship with Himself.  Not at a distance either, but close and personal. The Bible is full of examples of this relationship going all the way back to Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, David, Daniel, Isaiah, etc.  It goes on and on.  Each of these people and many more, communicated with God personally.  It’s what we’re still made for today.  God desires to walk with each one of us personally.

The problem today is that we are so busy and the church has been watered down with so much religious non-sense that we have lost touch with what it truly means to walk with God in an real and intimate relationship.  Sure we may read our Bibles out of a sense of duty, but do you realize there is more?  God speaks to us not just through His Word, but through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us when we choose to walk with Him and follow Christ.

I used to have a hard time with this concept. Can you really hear God speaking to you?  I think yes.  Do you think He just stopped with the Bible?  Of course not.  God desires to walk with us.  Why do you think He risked it all to leave His thrown and walk among through the person of Jesus Christ?  He desires us to be restored who we were meant to be all along.  In this life, we will never be fully who we were meant to be and we will never walk in the fullness of the intimacy God desires.  But we can began to seek that out when we are in Christ, learning to walk with Him daily and be sanctified daily.

It’s daily struggle for us in this life.  There are so many things competing for our attention and affection.  It’s so easy to choose to not walk with God daily and to do other things that may call your attention or just to say your too busy to just stop.  I struggle with this daily.  I strive every morning to get up before the family and sit in my living room chair in prayer, in the Word, and writing in my journal.  This quite time is when I truly focus on Him and conversing with Him and the chaos of the day has not began just yet.

There are days, however, and this morning was one, where I just struggle with getting my mind re-focused and just opening my heart to Him.  Like I said, things are always competing for our attention.  I was listening to a conversation series from Ransomed Heart this morning on conversational intimacy with God.  I’ve heard it a few times before, but something John Eldredge said stuck out to me today.  That was “Relationship requires things of me that are harder than a life of comfortable distance” (marriage, friendships, etc)…”there are things required of me in relationship“…(When we turn to walk in intimate relationship with God something in us) “recognizes that more is going to be required of us than we ever imagined.”

Walk with God in real intimacy and relationship requires much more of us and often times more than we may have been prepared to give.  It requires our attention and focus.  It requires to be open to whatever God may want to reveal to you, whether through His Word, through your heart, or through others around you.  It also requires you being willing to accept when God says no.  Walk with God is a two-way relationship.  We have to be able to speak and converse and we have to be willing to hear Him as well.

The point is this.  Relationship requires work.  God seeks relationship with each of us as He created us for that.  Relationship with God requires work.  It will push us.  It’s not about mastering religious principles and precepts.  It’s about intimacy.  John Eldredge shares in Waking the Dead, “Truth be told, you couldn’t master enough principles to see you safely through this Story.  There are too many surprises, ambiguities, exceptions to the rule.”  When talking about having a critical spirit of others, my pastor shared something Sunday that is critical in conquering a critical spirit and in every part of life…”Talk to God first.”  That’s where it all begins.  Talking with God.   It doesn’t come overnight.  I will continue working at this for the rest of my life.  The more you do this however, the more clearer you learn to walk with Him and hear Him.