Personal Time

You know, it is not easy to get a chance to spend quality time with my wife. She is an amazing woman, and deserves all that I can give to her. But it just seems that something always gets in the way. Sometimes it is the kids. We have three wonderful children and I would not trade them for the world. But we stay so busy with them, that we are wore out by the time we get them in the bed. And if I do hug or kiss my wife, they want to be apart too and squeeze their way in between us. Sometimes its my job. Working as a high school teacher and a varsity coach, my schedule is never set. Sometimes I get home around 4:30 in the afternoons, and sometimes I am lucky to get home before midnight. Life always seems to get in the way of continuing to grow our relationship. I find that the same is true with God. How often do we try to grow our relationship with God?

Matthew 22:36-38
"“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment."

Here in this passage we see Christ quoting from the book of Deuteronomy on the greatest commandment which is to love God above all else. I noticed while reading this verse that it is meant for an individual. "You" should love God with all "your" heart, soul, and mind. Not, your family should love. Not, your church should love. Not, your spouse should love. But you should love Him. This denotes that we as individuals should be devoting ourselves, by ourselves, to loving God. It has to be personal. I know of many individuals who only pray when with family, and they never talk to God unless it is a large group doing so. Now don't get me wrong, coming together as brothers and sisters for worship and prayer time is a great thing. However, it should not be the only time that we set aside to develop that relationship. A proper relationship takes individual time and devotion to cultivate.

A good way to see this is in the relationship of King David and God. The Psalms of David give us an insight into the personal time and devotion that David spent with God. Now David still had his problems. He is also known as a man after God's own heart. There was a true relationship there. He still had his sins and shortcomings that He had to deal with. And we can see this in the lament of some of his prayers to God in these Psalms. But that is true of everyone's relationships. Even between my wife and I, we sometimes fall short. There are a lot of times that we have to apologize to each other. And that will never change. This difference between our relationship with each other, and our individual relationship with God is that He will never fall short. He will never fail us in any way.

So what do we need to do to grow our own relationship? We need to do a few simple things. 1) We need salvation. We cannot have that relationship with God unless we accept His Son and make Him the Lord and Master of our lives. 2) We need to humble ourselves before Him. We need to come to a place where we truly see who God really is, and what we are not. Sometimes we come to pray and do so selfishly. We pray for what we think is right, and what we want, instead of praying for the will of God to be done. 3) We need to set aside and guard our personal, private prayer time. By getting alone daily to pray and commune with God, we can develop that relationship with God. 4) We need to spend time each day in the Word. Whether it is a devotional book, Christian websites that teach scripture, or just opening the book and studying, we need to individually learn everything we can about God. We do the same when we try to date that guy, or that girl. We learn everything we can about them so that relationship can grow. What better way to learn about God, than to read His Word.

So, how is your personal relationship with God right now?

Thanks for reading, and God bless you all!