Do you ever feel like you have forgotten to nourish your relationship with Christ? I mean, there has never been a day that I have or would say that I don’t believe in Christ or that I don’t desire to live that day working for Him and doing His work. Each day I wake knowing that He has a job for me and I strive daily to do that job. But sometimes I wake and find myself in a season of life where I have “forgotten” to nourish my relationship.My family keeps me busy, my work keeps me focused and then there is school that has to be completed … and pretty soon, I have “forgotten” to nourish my relationship with Christ. It takes the back burner, and I find myself depleted and discouraged. Why does it take getting to that point for me to remember that each day is about relationship with Him? It isn’t just about knowing I believe and making decisions each day that show I believe … it is also about seeking relationship with Him. The one who has given me life; and the one who wants more for me than I could ever conceive of having in my own small little mind, the one who is there when I need someone to listen, and the one who loves me for who I am … the woman He created me to be. I was thinking about the Samaritan woman at the well that Jesus encountered in John 4. He shared with her about “living water” and that when we drink the water that He gives we will never thirst. So when we don’t come to drink of His water, nurturing that relationship with Him, we thirst … and we thirst, until finally we remember that our thirst comes from not nurturing that relationship with Him; not seeking Him, the giver of life, love and relationship!
I am a big fan of Jason Gray, he is a contemporary Christian artist that if you do not know, you should seek out. His songs bring messages and constant reminders of what God has for us and what God desires to give us. Jason wrote a song called “More Like Falling In Love” and in this song Jason reminds us that our relationship with Christ has to be more like falling in love with Christ rather than something that we believe in. Jason shares about this song, “More Like Falling In Love is about the difference between religion and relationship. I think we’re often in danger of reducing Christianity to information – a series of facts that you must know and believe in order to be saved. It’s important for us to rigorously pursue good theology, to be sure, but it seems clear that when the scriptures talk about believing it’s talking about more than just propositional facts and has more to do with trust, affection, and above all relationship.” The older I get, the more I realize that when I pursue God, pursue understanding the Bible and all God has to teach me, I want to enter into deeper relationship with him. The relationship isn’t a duty; it is a desire out of all I have learned about who God is. The chorus from Jason’s song says “ It ought to be more like falling in love, than something to believe in, more like losing my heart than giving my allegiance, caught up, called out, come take a look at me now, it’s like I’m falling, oh, it’s like I’m falling in love.”
With Christmas just around the corner, and all the busyness of this season, I long today to return to that deep relationship and seek my daily dose walking side by side with the One whose relationship means more than any other I will have in my life!
