I just want to put my thoughts on paper. I think I have some level of peace about the whole "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life thing." God does love us, but the whole plan for your life thing isn't really true. So that kind of helped me get out of the rut of "Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing right now?"
Now the question is back to how do I relate to God. I keep hearing that I'm supposed to have this relationship with God. Spell it with an "R". But how does one relate to a being that cannot be seen or heard? It certainly is not a relationship like the relationships I have with other my wife, my children, my family or my friends. So how do I characterize this relationship.
So I was looking at Wikipedia, and learned that relationships are essentially characterized by two things: trust and intimacy. So those can apply to my relationship with God. I can trust him, and I can be intimate with Him. I can be real with Him, and not try to conceal those things that He can already see anyway, and he can reveal Himself to me. And basically he does that through His word.
So that's really what it boils down to. And I guess I knew that already. We can try to make it all mystical or whatever, but it really isn't a secret that the Christian walk really boils down to prayer and bible reading.
Note in the following passage why we have received God's Spirit.
ReplyDelete'But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.'
I Corinthians 2:7-16
https://www.bible.com/bible/114/1CO.2.7-16