Connecting With God

Last week I had the opportunity to accompany some young people as they attended a youth conference in Colorado Springs. Its a given that coming from southeast Texas to the mountains of Colorado that the scenery and the climate is an awesome shift. That aside, I have to say that attending meetings with a couple thousand young people who are bombarding heaven with their prayers and with worship do something to you. Having served in youth ministry for 15 plus years and now a senior pastor, I can honestly say that at no other "event" do I receive the spiritual infusion that I do attending these.

Yes, I know that God can speak to us and do things in us where ever we are at any given moment. That being said, I can't help but think there is something truly powerful about an environment saturated by corporate brokeness, desperation, and passion. Within that climate, I just think it is so much easier for us to be sensitive to God's voice. I mean think about it, no television, internet, Ipod, computer, cell phone, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Distractions are limited to very few things and you spend a few days saturated with little more than God and His Word.

Our culture is one that is characterized by busyness. Our schedules are filled with work, entertainment, chores, work, education, friends, family, more work, social networking, and somewhere, somehow we find a little time to sleep. For me personally, I'm trying to juggle being a husband, dad, son, friend, and pastor and all the responsibilities that come along with that. If you are anything like me, in the middle of all the busyness, God often takes a back seat to it all. I know that God is with us always, and in everything we do, but let's face it, we often use that statement to make us feel good in light of the fact that our personal prayer life and our times of intimacy with God are little more than puny and pathetic. Maybe that doesn't apply to you, but it hits me right between the eyes.

We've fallen for this lie that as long as I do my duty and go to church once a week for an hour or so, read my little promise scriptures, pay my tithe, put a Christian bumper sticker on my car, and listen to Christian music, that I'm good with God. The truth is I'm good with God, because of what Jesus did for me. I just think we are off track as long as we have the kind of mind set that says, "as long as I give God a little token offering of my life then all is well." Is that really the kind of life that He's worthy of?" Think about it for a moment. The purpose of Jesus coming and submitting Himself to death on a cross, was to reconcile you and I back to God. He came to rip down the wall that separated us from our Creator. He came to bring us into relationship with our heavenly Father. God, Himself, put on flesh and blood, and was willing to bleed and die in order to restore our relationship with Him. Can we honestly think that an hour a week and a quick prayer before nodding off to sleep, and our prayers of personal petitions, are worthy of His sacrifice?

If Christ's sacrifice was for the purpose of connecting us to God once again, shouldn't connecting with God be a huge priority on our life? I believe our attempts at fitting God into our schedule are playing right into the hand of the enemy. Our enemy doesn't really mind if we engage in lots of religious activity as long as we lose sight of what Christ died to give us. God longs for relationship with His people. A real authentic relationship is not one that we try to squeeze in somewhere between all of our list of to do's. Real authentic relationships demand time in order to be healthy. While it may be a truth that we are sons and daughters of God, it is equally true that we will never experience the fullness of that relationship if we don't choose to spend time cultivating it.

God longs to connect with us. God longs for us to come to the place where we long to connect with Him. Let's determine to make time for those personal, intimate encounters with our Creator. Let's make a decision to work the rest of our lives around those moments. I grew up with personal Bible study, prayer time, and quiet times being called "spiritual disciplines." The more I think about that, I just kind of think if that's the way we see it, we're missing the point. I'm just crazy enough to believe that we can fall so in love with our God that our heart yearns for those moments of personal connection. After all, God has fallen so in love with us that He was willing to do whatever it took to connect with us. Let's live a life that is worthy of the sacrifice Christ made for us.