Intentional God-Focused Living
A relationship is the starting point. We must seek God until we find Him. It is God’s way. But do we act like we are doing it God’s way? This can be a problem for us.
GOING DEEPER WITH GOD: LESSON 5
Premise: God made us for relationship
We all have them.
What are some of the frustrations Christians internalize but we think would be unchristian to acknowledge? People of faith get frustrated with God. Really, we do. Sometimes it seems fairly legitimate, we convince ourselves of this. Other times? It seems like we’re spinning our wheels, getting nowhere fast. I confess, I am this way on occasion. I lose my focus. Then the complaining begins.
It can be disheartening listening to a Christian’s on-going complaints about almost anything and everything, especially when these are things which can be brought to God in prayer. Soon we realize it’s true, the Christian faith lived-out is not what we claim to believe it is. It seems like it is failing to deliver. We say one thing but live as if it couldn’t possibly be true.
How so?
I believe this is a surface problem for the Christian (who really wants more in their walk). There is a reason for this. The walk doesn’t match the talk because the walk lacks spiritual depth. Christian believers tend to be duplicitous. We live intellectually with a Christian mindfulness–an academic, intellectual belief that we can parrot to others–but in practical living, our faith is weak and sometimes our lives are not all that much different from our unbelieving family, friends and colleagues. This may stem from incorrect thinking in regard to God.
Our perception of God and our Christianity is limited.
Ours may be a limited viewpoint even when the theology is completely formed and correctly developed. The walk of faith should be more, much more than Christian believers have placidly come to accept as “normal” or expected. It takes some understanding to see where we’ve headed with this wrong-thinking, which has misconstrued truth and caused a common misconception in the Christian walk.
The premise is faulty.
Our view of God and how He relates to us may be the reason we get confused. Believing, Christian people tend to see God as someone to go to, to “use” for their own benefit, for their own good.
We (unconsciously) put God in a box.
We define what we want God to be. It is a human trait but in error none-the-less. People in the faith community often have a truncated view of God, limited to what is humanly observable and to our own protected way of thinking, limited to those things which are obvious and sustainable–what we can actually observe God is doing in the here and now.
It is also limited to that which a person expects and wants God to do. Not only do Christian people live their lives within a framework of a limited spiritual parameter, but we also put constraints on our view of what God can and wills to do in our own personal lives and in the world around us. We lack vision and a Christ-focused outlook.
Many Christians act as if they believe God isn’t active or alive these days. We spout off like everything in the world is going to hell in a handbag. We think we have it all figured out. Again, this is a limited view. Such thinking is found mostly in the context of a secular world-view with its secular perspective.
It can also stem from an inward ingrown spiritual perception of defined and definite boundaries of “how” God works and only works in the Christian community. The “living in the fullness of God’s Spirit” is missing in these common scenarios. Believers in Christ would do well to be freed from this way of viewing spiritual truth. I will explain what I mean.
Whether we are aware of it or not, Christian (and non-Christian) people often see God as a magic cure-all, a magic fix, whose sole purpose is to set everything right and to make our lives pleasant and happy.
When something is wrong, people go to God to fix it. When something is too big, or too large for us, or too beyond our power to control, we storm the heavens. The emphasis is on the wrong side of what it is to be Christian and lacks what it is to be a trusting Christian.
How much better it would be if all of us would just love God for Who He is, instead of what He does for us–although the two cannot be entirely separated. God is not a dispenser where A + B = C; if I do “this good thing” plus “this good thing,” I will get “that good thing.”
- Why is it so easy for Christians to see God in this way, as here to make them happy?
- What could break this habit, this view-point of seeing God as someone whose purpose is to make us happy, to fulfill our needs, and to fix everything?
What to do?
A real relationship with God is the starting point. It is my belief that God made all people for the purpose of living in a close, dynamic relationship with Him.
Although our primary purpose is to glorify God while on earth, which brings Him glory, a living relationship with God is a facet in the spiritual journey which initiates and causes an ongoing outworking in the form of a transforming within us. This becomes the impetus for a lively spiritual unity with God.
God doesn’t intend for His children to wing it, to do the best they can, all the while pleading with Him to help them (through a desperate, weak supplicating). No, that is a limited view of what God desires for us. The point has been missed. We have it backwards. We are living with our glass half empty.
In that way of thinking, the person has failed to see what God truly desired when He created Adam and Eve; when God formed man as the center as a human person, created in God’s image. Embedded in man and woman by way of being created in the image of God, is a capacity for a living (and loving), fully formed relationship with Him. God made humans to want more of Him, to seek God, to find Him, and to find our satisfaction in Him.
God wants humanity to see that there is more to life than ordinary living–paying the bills and having some fun–although those things are well and good. Through Christ’s redemption of a lost humanity, it became possible to have a deeper level of living. The broken relationship was restored. Humans can now commune in oneness with all three persons of the God-head, known as the holy Trinity. In fact, we as Christians are adopted into God’s family.
We became a family unit.
How cool is that? A family operates as a family. We have reciprocity and familial bonds. We aren’t used to thinking in terms of relationship when we talk about God. I never used to either. Through years of seeking God and then finding Him as real and living, it finally dawned on me that what I had with God was an intimate relationship and that He was the strong one, the father in the relationship, patiently waiting for me to want, need, love, and cherish Him.
During the initial stages of the relationship, I was an immature, dependent, woeful and hurting child. Over the course of time I grew in spiritual strength–more mature in my faith and also in my ability to discern spiritual truth. Godly wisdom began seeping into my thinking and outworking in my human connections with others.
It was a miracle, a beautiful miracle of divine grace.
All relationships have a give-and-take dynamic. Christianity, which is functioning on limited basis, is often bereft of a healthy relationship component. The relationship is marked by a lack of fluidity. To the observer, it is rigid, unbending, unhappy, and sometimes even angry and unloving. To the outsider, this comes across as unattractive and life-squelching, rather than life-giving and free. Living Christianity in this way, lacks soul healing and soul transformation. This should not be.
God made all humans for relationship with Him.
We feel unworthy. Of course we do! Except for the finished work of Christ, we have little to offer in this relationship. Yet, God calls us to Himself. We are precious to Him. He is a loving Father with His needy children.
As in any solid union, there is a key ingredient necessary for this relationship to work and to become a solid, functional unit. That ingredient is “trust.” God knows His children struggle to develop into contented, full-functioning and mature Christians. Many try their best to become servants of all, an endeavor enabled through noble, unselfish human effort. He knows His followers put forth amazing energy into doing (the most they can), which is the good that is not the best, but it is not the perfect reason for living it out.
God understands how all of us get misled or get stuck in a form of “doing, doing, and doing” a practice of completing spiritual works for God and God’s kingdom. It comes quite naturally for us. We are used to performance as the indicator of worthy-ness, the measuring rod that exemplifies (spiritual) success. The problem with this type of thinking is, it falls short and is just plain not true. It’s not all there is, and it’s not the right reason for Christian living. It is duty-bound rather than love-bound. That’s not what God wants from us for our first-fruits. We get this soooo upended.
Do not misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with serving God and doing good works. In themselves, they are very good. But it is much better if our spiritual works are rooted in and because of our loving relationship with God rather than out of our own strength and sense of duty. Spiritual living becomes natural and won’t become self-righteous deed-doing.
In a secular, merit-based society, it is easy to miss the truth of the matter. All of this spiritual “doing” is truly secondary to being fully what God wants His loved-ones, His beloved children, to be, to know and to enjoy. Doing, as an end in itself, simply fails to meet the inner need for oneness with God, which is found only through a closeness that brings us into sweet fellowship with the Godhead.
God seeks us.
When a person seeks back, truly seeks God; when we are willingly to open our hearts to God’s ministrations; a miracle of divine love and of divine proportions penetrates into our beings. A mystery begins from within, deep in the soul, which will unfold much like a seed grows, forms, blossoms, and produces fruit. It develops in the form of an intimate, beautiful, loving, reciprocal God-to-Human, Human-to-God relationship; the beloved with the Lover, the Lover of our souls and of our beings.
A young man I know has begun to experience this relationship.
First, it was God speaking to him by anchoring a verse from a Psalm during a time of immense emotional pain in his life. A couple of years later, he visits a church, the minister is speaking, and the words are just for him.
The walls start crumbling down. He begins to weep, feeling as if he could cry and cry without end. He feels as if he could sob his heart out. He sees his sin for what it is. He acknowledges his own pain, and also the pain he’s caused to others. Something has taken root. His life is changing.
The year continues on, and he finds himself praying often.
He begins to sense God communicating with him especially when he is alone in the evening hours while he views the sun as it is setting.
Soon he finds someone to share what is happening to him. An openness ensues. It is not easy for him. He is sensitive; he’s been hurt by life. There is much inside of him that needs to be cleansed and healed, too much pain and anger, and there are things to learn and ways to grow. A year or two later, he finds himself reading and seeking God’s ways, overwhelmed by a sense of God’s great love for him.
This young man shared his story with me after the process had been in place and growing him. He is experiencing first-hand the love of God, specifically for him, and it is humbling, precious, and life-changing real. It is everything. This young man knows the type of spiritual relationship that I am talking about. It is authentic and vital, life-transforming and genuine.
Let’s talk about relationships, historically and conceptually.
Let’s think about it, how did the Scriptural story play out?
- What is the oldest relationship that ended; the great divorce in heaven?
- What is the next recorded relationship that ends with a willful choosing of self-want and self-actualization over God?
- How did Christ bridge this chasm between God and humanity?
- If all your children went their own way, rejecting you and your values and for years on end, yet you continue to love them dearly, anyways; how would that make you feel?
- On the flip side, how do you think God feels when His beloved children really, really, really want Him, when they want Him because He is God, because He loves them dearly–not for just what He and His Son have done for them through the offer of salvation and the many good things that They (Father, Son, and Spirit) have provided for them–but because of unconditional, living and sacrificial love?
We have a role to play in God’s loving intention for this world.
Spiritual Exercise:
Get alone with God. In quietness ask God to reveal to you how He sees you in your world. Ask Him to show you your heart, to reveal your sins, to show you your fears and the things in your heart that you cannot see. List these out.
Enter into God’s story. Picture yourself in the New Testament times, walking with Jesus as He heals blind Bartimaeus, casts out demons, raises a young girl to life, agonizes in the garden, and so forth. Read through all four gospels; take several days to do so.
Think on Jesus. Think on who He is and what He is doing. Practice bringing God into your thoughts throughout the day. Remind yourself to think on God by using physical touch–touching your heart, wrist, or something tangible every time you think on God and how God is evident in your life or in the world.
Do not be afraid to approach God.
God is not a mean ogre who wants to punish you. He is not unapproachable or vindictive. God is approachable. He desires to reach out to you, and to have you reach back to Him–to seek Him until you find what your heart desires, the deeper level of union with God. You will be amazed by what will happen when you open yourself to God.
If God seems unavailable or you feel anger towards Him (for a reason known only to you), I challenge you to deal with it. Find a place where you can get alone with God for a lengthy period of uninterrupted seeking. Quiet and time are necessary for there to be strides of healing grace deep in the recesses of the heart and soul. This brings the relationship with God close, close, and closer.
Pray and talk with God until you begin to sense that you are different. One has to push other thoughts aside. Do not stop until something happens in your person, in your soul, and in your thinking. Total honesty and openness is essential. No personal agendas allowed. This may take hours or even days. It comes through a sorting of your past life and a compelling of the Holy Spirit. Persist. Don’t let fear stop you.
Many fine Christians stop short of ever drawing close to God, which is only found in an intimate walk of faith, one that is life-changing and dynamic. They live in the realm of common sense, moral rightness, and the doing of good deeds. But it falls short. It has no “life” to it. If that’s you, that’s settling (like “settling,” when you could do better), and it has the composition of a limited relationship based on works and performance, not God’s living presence and grace. Go for more.
Fear is often the antithesis of faith.
May you find God to be enough, everything, and wonderful; today, tomorrow, and always.
