The Ultimate Relationship

I love people. I love learning about their quirks, talents and interests, and for some rare, special people, their hearts. I enjoy building relationships with other people, especially. From the eight-year-olds in my Sunday School to the 60-year-old people we invite to Christmas dinner, I love getting to know people better. I think people are the second-biggest blessing that God has given to... people! But so often I am so focused on building relationships (and often pleasing) people, that I forget about the very best gift God has to offer... relationship with HIM!

As awesome as people are, they can never offer the relationship that God can offer! People are needy... they desire things like attention, popularity, control, wealth, and hundreds of other great things. But the main thing I think everyone on this earth needs is to be cared about. I am one of those people. I want to be loved and valued by others, and so often I feel like I have to perform to earn this love. But God is the Creator of humans, and I think He created us with this need. Because He ISN'T needy like humans, He is able to perfectly fulfill what we need. He offers love, wisdom, and peace, and relationship. How awesome is that?

But the think that I so often forget about what He offers is that I don't have to earn it. I don't have to earn His acceptance. I don't have to make God laugh or smile. I don't have to be perfectly sinless to EARN His love. What God wants from me is relationship, an so often I am so busy trying to EARN the "right" to have relationship with Him that I don't actually spend time with Him! I get distracted, and neglect to read His word. I get busy trying to "bless" other people to "shine" for Jesus, but don't actually cultivate a relationship with God! In other words, I want to "shine" for Jesus, while I let the joy He places inside me grow stale and dim. How can I be filled up with the prescence of someone I don't spend time with? How can I let His love shine through me, when I don't take the time to experience His love.

So often I try and try and try to make Him happy... as though His happiness is linked somehow to what I do. God doesn't NEED me to make Him happy. But as I think about it, I realize the thing He really  wants is an actual relationship with me. As Christians we are called to shine FOR Jesus because we are full OF Jesus. Trying to shine for Him without a passion for Him burning in us is like trying to start a fire with a couple twigs. Shining for Jesus requires FUEL! I need Gods' Word and a relationship with Him before I will be able to truly honor HIm! The works don't create a love relationship with God... the love causes us to WANT to do things that honor Him. Seems like I've been trying to do things backwards here!