Relationships

How much time do you spend with your best friend?  My guess is a lot.  I mean, how else do they become your best friend?  You spend hours talking to and spending time with them.  You call each other to go to a movie or get coffee.  You tell each other about what's going on in your life and how something has made you happy or someone has made you mad.  Why?  Because with a friendship like that, or any relationship for that matter, you have to spend time cultivating it.

What if your best friend never called you?  What if you never spent time with your closest friends?  Isn't it obvious that just like a gowing relationship requires time and energy and effort to make it grow, a relationship without those things is stagnant?  Wouldn't it be true that a relationship without those things is not a relationship at all?  You wouldn't be best friends with that person, you would be more like acquaintances...or strangers...

You know the same thing applies to our relationship with God?  I can say all day long that I love God and I want to glorify Him with my life and I have this really close relationship with Him and I'm trying to figure out what His will for my life is and...and...and...

But how can that be true if I don't spend time with Him?  How can that be true if I don't talk to Him and let Him talk to me?  The truth is, though, that's something I've heard before.  It's not a new concept to me that I need to put time and energy and effort into growing in my relationship with God.  It's not my purpose for writing this today.

I need to take this a step further and share what's been really on my heart lately.  In our small group, we have been reading through "Forgotten God" by Francis Chan.  (WOW!  We're not even halfway through and already it's given me much to think about and apply in my life.)  One of the things that Chan mentions is that the Holy Spirit is a Person, distinct from the Person of God or the Person of Jesus.  That started me thinking about something I hadn't thought about before.

The Holy Spirit is a Person.  John 14:17 talks about how I am to be in relationship with the Holy Spirit.  So, just like with God, I have to foster it, I have to put effort into being in and growing in relationship with the Holy Spirit.  This is such a new concept for me because I guess I just always assumed that the Holy Spirit would just be there, that He would just guide me and teach me and that would be that.

But it's so much bigger than that!  The Bible promises all of these gifts that the Holy Spirit brings with Him.  The Bible says that I will bear the fruit of the Spirit.  So, how do I make sure that I am receiving those gifts?  How do I make sure that I am bearing that fruit?  How do I learn God's will for my life, what I've been praying for since I can remember?

I have to pursue relationship with the Holy Spirit - actively, consistently.  I have to pray for a closer and more intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, just like I pray for a closer and more intimate relationship with God.

So I guess the thought I'll end with is - what or who are you seeking relationship with?