A Personal Relationship With God

Having a personal relationship with God can sometimes feel unreal or hard to achieve.

Recently, during our morning Bible Study and then again, at a women’s event at our church, God reminded me how very personal He is to me.

God began a process in me. A hunger to know where things are found in scripture, to know how to hear the voice of God, to know why I believe what I believe. As my children grow older, I need to have more than a short answer. I need to be able to explain who I am in Christ and why I follow God with my whole heart.

It has been a process of searching scripture finding out the how and why of our faith. And, what a rewarding journey it has been so far. There is nothing as wonderful as having a daily, faithful devotion time with God.

Nothing as precious as a personal relationship with Jesus.

Nothing will awaken you more to who HE IS in YOUR life as spending time with Him. Even sometimes when that devotional time is messy.

This season brought a whole new batch of circumstances into my life. Unexpected ones but healthy, learning ones. It has been hard, time-consuming and challenging. I have struggled in many ways.

But God, through it all, continued to validate, uplift and encourage me through others and His word.

This process is digging into the very core of who I am. What makes me me? What layers or conditions are effecting my heart right now? What do those layers or conditions say about me and how I am processing the life around me?

What do they say about my personal relationship with God?

Psalm 139:13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…”

God created our inmost being, our heart, our soul, our core before he created the outward appearance. Before He knitted together our skin, our hair, our eye color or our body type, He was creating our inmost being. Wow.

God very quickly reminded me of another verse.

Hosea 10:12 says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.”

break up your unplowed ground…

I love that word picture. The picture of a hardened field being freshly plowed with good things. Once again, God showed me that field and the field was me. I had shifted focus from Him to the situations of life and it had stopped the growing, plowing process.

I love how God has loved me through this season.

How He spoke to me and gave me specific wisdom. But, also, how He personally loved me enough to remind me that I needed to put my focus back on Him.

He relentlessly pursued me until I realized that the ground was hardening and it was time to put the plow back into the field.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 says,”Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.”

His love for us is jealous, as unyielding as the grave. That kind of jealousy can be described as “passionately intense devotion”.

God is passionately, intensely devoted to loving me. And, He won’t relent. He relentlessly pursues me each day as part of my personal relationship with Him.

He is doing a new thing in my heart. Precious moments with Him are yielding new fruit. He is lovingly, compassionately nudging me forward on a journey with him. A journey to rip away the facade and become who HE really wanted me to be.

The journey has begun, the ground is again being plowed and I am praying for God to change my heart.

Praying that God will transform me through His great love and make me who He wants me to be.

He is a personal God and He meets us right where we are and takes us on new journeys with Him when we seek Him, give Him our unplowed ground and let Him into the quiet places of our hearts.