I have a confession to make. Up until earlier this year I was a slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am Bible reader and prayer. The faster I could get it done, the better. In fact, praying and reading my Bible were just a routine checklist of activities.
✔️Quick prayer
✔️Quick reading of my Bible
The thing is: My heart was not involved. I did it just to check the box that shows how good a ritualistic Christian I was. I checked all the boxes that I thought needed to be checked but the very important one.
❌ Relationship with God.
Let’s talk about love and relationship…
Hang on! We are going for a ride…
“The people we love don’t benefit from the love we feel. They benefit from the love we show.” – Dr. Dharius Daniels
I’ve been thinking about love and relationships a lot lately and I’ve come to one conclusion. Our love is clearly demonstrated by the amount of time and energy we invest in our relationships. Think about it. When we love someone, we want to spend time with the person. Can anyone testify of the amount of time spent talking on the phone or going on dates? 🙂 We want to listen to that special person and be listened to. We don’t go days without communicating; some of us will even check-in throughout the day. We want to do nice things for that person and take pleasure in that person doing nice things for us. We want to support the person and be supported in return. If we are not careful, time become meaningless and the definition of too much goes out the window, as we are on a high.
As the love grows, something else happens. The time and energy investment transforms. Love becomes about commitment, consistency in words and actions, caring for your love using his/her love language, sacrifice, passion, etc. In fact, a flourishing love relationship is generally a sign that time and energy has been invested.
It can be madness but we crave it. We love it because our heart is invested. Wouldn’t you agree?
Now let’s talk about our love for God…
Let’s go a bit deeper. If that’s what love does to us, why then do we fail to exhibit the same symptoms when it comes to our love for God? Have you ever considered what God’s love language is (how He wants us to demonstrate our love for Him)? He seems like a Quality Time kinda guy.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” – Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
It seems like a heart issue! Each time we prioritize something else over investing quality time and energy into our relationship with God, we are saying to Him “I know You love me but I don’t feel the same way.” Our hearts are not fully committed and the lack of commitment flows from it.
We say we love God but demonstrate no desire to invest any quality time or energy in our relationship with Him. We treat God like a sugar daddy. The only thing He is good for is supplying our needs and providing answers to our prayers/requests. We are always too busy handling the life that He gave us and that we should be asking Him to guide us through. The God of the Universe, who watches closely over billions of human beings, still finds time to invite us to build a relationship with Him yet still we are too busy to return even one of His daily calls or text messages (aka knock at our heart’s door). I won’t even touch on when He wants our support because some of us will never give it.
The Point? I assure you there is one… 🙂
God loves us without reservations and wants to spend quality time with us. The Bible tells us that He used to walk through the garden with Adam in the evenings (Genesis 3:8) and that He and Moses would spend time talking together face-to-face (Exodus 33:11). In building a relationship with God, our heart has to get involved. Our heart is where the desire to love and spend quality time with Him is generated.
Side Note: Two things happened while I was in the process of writing this post:
- For the first time since March, I fell asleep and missed my one-on-one with God. When I did wake, I felt so guilty. This gave me a chance to assess my heart’s posture.
- Maverick City released a new song called “Have My Heart“. See link below. I thought it was so relevant for this topic that I just had to share. 🙂
God gives us all of His heart without reservations and craves spending quality time with us. He deserves nothing less than our full attention and devotion. Will you grant Him the desire of His heart? Will you give Him your heart?
Awesome News!
Discovering by Design is heading to the YouVersion Bible app. Our first plan will use the life of Joseph, as a guide, to focus on practices to employ on the path to achieving purpose. More details will follow in upcoming weeks. I am totally psyched! Hoot hoot! 🙂
A Quick Side Note: If you have kids, be sure to check out the YouVersion Bible app for kids and TC Kidz. They both have some incredible content and are fabulous ways to train up a child in the way he/she should grow! See what I did there? 🙂
One Response