Relationships

I am so excited to write this blog. I can't believe that it has been almost six months since I've written a post. It's crazy how you forget about things when life gets so busy. I read a quote last week by C.S. Lewis: A man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God. wow. I've been dealing a lot with relationships lately. This isn't going to be one of those cliche rants about love and dating and all that, I mean I might talk about it some, but I'm really feeling that its much deeper. I've recently come to accept that I've lost some relationships. I've gradually seen my relationships with people slip away. I've also learned that it is impossible to have a relationship if both people aren't putting forth the same amount of effort. Some relationships aren't mean to be long term, some people are only in your life for a certain amount of time to teach you something that you need to learn. Sometimes people come back into your lives when you least expect it. If there is one thing I can say about us as humans, its that we put a great deal of value into relationships. When we are in elementary school we are best friends forever. We don't even want to lose what we have with that person, when realistically we normal lose contact with those people by the time we enter high school. In middle and high school we start dating and think we've found our true love. More often that not, that doesn't last either. I feel like we focus so much on our relationships with other people that we forget about our most important relationship. We try so hard to find love in other people when we already have it. In Proverbs 8: 17 it says "I love those who love me, and those who seek me early and diligently shall find me." I feel like out of all my relationships the one with God is the one that I most often push aside when I get busy. I get too tired to read my Bible, or only pray when I have a test or need something. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and all your strength." Mark 12:30 This is such an astonishing verse. Heart, soul, mind, and strength. Mark 12:30 are directions telling us how to keep our relationships with God strong. Loving God in each of these areas requires loving God with every aspect of our lives. If we are so focused on finding love in other people, how can we show God the love he wants from us? If we worried half as much about our relationship with God as we did about our relationships with other people, I couldn't even imagine how different things would be. One thing I truly believe when it comes to marriage is that you should find the person that brings you closer to God. Why? Because unless you have a relationship centered around God, you are never going to be satisfied with that relationship. You can't experience true love, without experiencing God. And you can't experience God if you don't build the foundation of your relationship around him. We seem to forget that God is the only one who will never leave us, he created us to love us. Lets go back to relationships with people. Friendships. The health of your friendship depends on how much effort you put into that friendship. If you never talk to that person, see that person,or call and see how things are going, then chances are the friendship isn't going to last very long. Unfortunately, you could be the one putting in all the effort, but if the action isn't reciprocated, the friendship is not going to work and it's the same way with dating. It has to be an effort of both parts. Now back to the quote by C.S. Lewis, "A man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God." This love that we mentioned earlier, not just love, but love with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. True love. I don't know if this is true for everyone else, but the more I love God and the stronger my relationship becomes with him, the better my relationships are with other people. I don't think that is just a coincidence, I think it's because he is teaching me how I'm supposed to love. I wonder how many times we have broken up with God, or let our relationship with him fade. I mean, we usually come back at some point but no matter what he is always there. No matter what we've done or how long we've been gone it's almost like we never left. "those who seek me find me" He is always there. When our relationships with other people are broken, we still have our relationship with him. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrew 13:5 I honestly don't think I can comprehend just how powerful his love is. I think we should start evaluating our relationships and seeing how they compare to our relationship with God. Which one are we putting more effort into keeping? If we focus on our relationship with him, I am sure that he will bring us the relationships we need in our lives, and show us the relationships that are worth keeping.