Feeling Disconnected From God

Chapter 6 begins a conversation about falling in love with God... something, quite frankly, that is COMPLETELY foreign to me. For me, the idea of "falling in love" brings about a physical reaction... butterflies in the stomach, sweating palms, racing heart beat... definitely romanticized (also a little embarrassing). I still associate this feeling with my husband. Admittedly, the feelings aren't as frequent or prolonged, as when we first started dating... but I still have those moments when I realize how completely and totally in love I am with him all over again.

Yet, despite this endearing love... life just gets in the way. In fact, just the other day, I called my husband at work telling him that I just wanted to put the kids to bed early that night and spend time talking to him. The entire week was flashing by and I had barely spent two minutes with him. With three growing kids, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to find that precious alone time... time to connect. We try to stay on top of it, because the truth is... we both become a little off kilter. Our marriage is important. Our friendship is important. If we don't make it a priority, both of those crucial elements of our relationship begin to suffer... and ultimately our family suffers.

So, this morning, as I was enjoying my quiet time, I started thinking about this concept of "falling in love" with God. I'm ashamed to say that it still feels a little silly to me... because I associate this "feeling" with my husband. However, in an effort to push through this mental block, I've decided to just apply the same principles, if you will, to my relationship with God that I apply to my relationship with my husband... most importantly, spending quality, one-on-one time with Him.

One of the biggest traps I used to fall into was confusing Bible study time, or "religious" reading time, as a replacement for my quality time with God. Even books like Crazy Love... books that focus on strengthening our relationship with God... can't take the place of the importance and necessity of our prayer time... our conversation time... with God. Put another way, imagine if we needed to work on our marriages, but instead of talking to our spouses, we just read "self-help" books, waiting for our marriages to change. If that was the case, we'd still be waiting...

THE PUSH

Today, I want us to start working on our communication skills with God. For those of you that are "old pros"... step it up a notch. But, for those that might be a little uncomfortable with the concept of talking (praying) to God... try something a little different. When most people think about praying, they think about throwing up a laundry list of requests to God. But think about how your spouse would react if all your conversations resulted in a list of things you want them to do for you! Just spend time talking to God... asking for nothing but comforting time with Him... and a chance to get to know Him better.