We are relational beings and everything we do revolves around this central hub. Our careers, our sense of fulfillment and our drive to achieve all revolve around how we are perceived by others, how we try to impress others and how connected we feel to certain groups we want to belong. If you know someone who is struggling with satisfaction in life, feeling empty and unfocused in their aspirations and goals, it is, in my opinion, because their relationships are out of order. Life seems to fall apart when we relegate relationships to a second place behind possessions, position and power. It's like running a car engine on kerosene rather than gasoline. It may seem to be working, at least for a while, but eventually it will all seize up.
The same is true of our relationship to God. It must come first if everything is to fall into it's proper place and in the right priority. Nothing else in all creation can take the place of God in our life and all other attempts will be running on kerosene, ultimately doomed to failure and sometimes rather spectacular failures at that.
So how do our relationships with God, which are based on trust, flourish and bring the kind of satisfaction we're all looking for. Well, we've already talked about learning the basics of spiritual relationships through the teaching and practical experiences of wise mentors and teachers. We talked about being introduced to what spirituality is, how it works and how to grow it by special people who have walked the path and can show us the way.
But there comes a time when we must take ownership of every relationship. Our faith cannot depend just on our family traditions, on our place of origin or on a specific denomination we've been loyal to for years. It must become PERSONAL, PRIVATE and PERSISTENT. I'm sure this isn't particularly surprising, at least it shouldn't be. All our relationships become our own or they remain only acquaintanceS or associates.
If you want your FAITH TO FLOURISH, it must become PERSONAL.
If you want your FAITH TO MATTER, it must become ACTIVE.
Sermon Audio Faith Catalysts Personal Disciplines 5.5.13E
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“Life seems to fall apart when we relegate relationships to a second place behind possessions, position and power. It’s like running a car engine on kerosene rather than gasoline. It may seem to be working, at least for a while, but eventually it will all seize up.
The same is true of our relationship to God. It must come first if everything is to fall into its proper place and in the right priority. Nothing else in all creation can take the place of God in our life and all other attempts will be running on kerosene, ultimately doomed to failure and sometimes rather spectacular failures at that.”
How easy all that you say sounds; yet in reality, how difficult it is to establish.
Don’t you wonder why people “don’t have the eyes to see and the ears to hear” before they have to endure those “rather spectacular failures”?
Don’t you find it scary and daunting that many “churched” people don’t see “the log in their own eye” only the “tree” in everyone else’s eye not only before but even after those “rather spectacular failures,” which end up for many and most to be incomprehensible as well as undeserved?
Aren’t you thankful that God is the Hound of Heaven never giving up on us and always, with and through His grace, pursuing us until, like the Prodigal Son, we choose to return to our Father, Who “sees us from a distance, hikes up His skirts, and runs to meet us with open arms”?
And aren’t I grateful to you for sharing “the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart” in Sunday morning sermons and in this and numerous other blogs on your Sojourn site?
Yes, most assuredly — thank you for being one of God’s very own Hounds of Heaven here on earth, teaching us, pursuing us, and never — no matter how daunting the task and how “hard-hearted” we are — never giving up on us and/or on your desire and need and responsibility to proclaim “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” so that our hearts will both adopt it and choose it as our lifestyle, “running on gasoline rather than kerosene.”