Shortly after waking this morning and before getting out of bed I began praying about the day and its challenges. Most of my prayer was composed of requests for God to act — solve problems, guide in decisions, open doors, provide strength and guidance. In the midst of the prayer I was overcome with the selfishness of the moment. I realized how different that was from the way I greet my wife Pat each morning. The first thing I do when we both awake is to tell Pat I love her, but the first thing I did with God was to tell Him what I wanted Him to do.
The realization was clear. I needed to begin the day telling God how much I loved Him. That is more important than what God might do anyway. Relationships are always more important than actions. Of course, we can love God only because He first loved us. God gives us opportunity to return His love and build a loving relationship based on love offered and love returned.
That is a lot like life. Love can be offered, but no enduring relationship results until love is accepted and returned. Just accepting love is a selfish act. It is to take and never give. Some relationships are like that. They are based on what someone can do for us. They are one-way relationships that are destined to fail because love that is not returned becomes love that dies.
Perhaps that is why God calls us to love Him with heart and soul, mind and strength. God desires relationships with us where His love is accepted and returned. Again we are told to love God with our “whole hearts.” That makes for a life-long relationship, a relationship that changes who we are and how we live.
In the years that Pat and I have been married I have begun learning what she is like. Sometimes I can accurately predict how she will react to certain circumstances. I’ve learned some of her favorite sayings and her likes and dislikes. Learning these lessons was not always easy, but each was certainly worthwhile. Because I love her, it is important to me to do things that she likes.
In a similar manner, the longer one walks with God, the better one knows God. Through communication with God, one learns what God likes and dislikes. Through the basic disciplines of the Christian faith — regular Bible study, prayer, worship, hearing God’s voice through other believers, service and more — one learns His character and sees His heart.
There is nothing new about these activities. They are the hard work of building a relationship with God. In the process, one begins to learn what God is like. One begins to see with God-like eyes, to hear with God-like ears, to feel with God-like compassion.
This result is more than an intellectual learning experience. In the years Pat and I have been married, for example, I have learned to like Mexican food. That is a change in me produced by a relationship. As one lives in relationship with God, one learns to love what God loves and to dislike what displeases Him. It is the experience of “growing in grace” or growing in the image of our Savior and Lord, Jesus, the Christ who lived perfectly before the Heavenly Father.
Knowing Pat’s taste in food provides direction when we choose a restaurant. If that is true in human relationships, how much more does knowing what God likes and dislikes direct our choices about life? Choices reflect the importance of a relationship and whether that relationship reflects love for another or simple selfishness.
Relationships also provide identity. Every married couple is known as a couple, not as two separate and unconnected individuals. If you have ever worked closely with someone whose spouse died, you probably heard him or her say, “I don’t know who I am anymore.” That is because one’s individual identity is subordinated to the identity of the spousal relationship. When the spouse dies, part of the survivor dies and a new identity must be forged.
In the same way, a relationship with God provides identity. The term “Christian” is not a meaningless word. It implies that one believes in Jesus Christ as one’s personal Lord and Savior, that one has a relationship with Jesus and that one is part of the family of God. One’s identity is not as an individual. It is as a child of God.
Identity is important because discipline grows from identity. Again the family analogy gives understanding. A married person has an identity based on a relationship. One is married. One has the responsibility and privilege of caring as no one else has. One has the responsibility and privilege of providing and enabling as no one else has. What joy there is to see the way love lived out in discipline helps another become as God intended.
There are also limits. A family relationship makes demands for loyalty, priority and participation. One is not free to indulge every whim because of the importance of the married relationship.
A relationship with God also requires discipline. Christians have the responsibility and the privilege to represent their Heavenly Father as a kingdom of priests. They are commissioned to act and to speak in His name. Christians are to be God’s very presence wherever they are. Representing God to others is one of the meanings of priesthood. It is an expression of love lived out.
And there are limits. Scripture affirms that believers “are not your own. You have been bought with a price” — the blood of Jesus shed on Calvary’s tree. Believers turn away from temptation because they are disciplined by the identity of being in a loving relationship with God.
Being loved by my wife gives me joy every day. It gives me strength and encouragement as well as identity and discipline. How much more joy does one experience knowing that God loved us so much that He was willing for Jesus to pay our sin debt so we might have an eternal relationship with Him? How much strength and encouragement for each day comes by remembering God loves us?
God wants us to bring Him all our concerns and challenges just like I did as this day began. But before laying these at His feet, God gives us opportunity to tell Him how much we love Him, and that is new every morning.
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