I know it is important to spend time daily reading scripture, meditating, and praying. However, why is it so important? Well for starters, it is how we grow in our faith. It is what we are told to do so that we will daily know and follow God’s will for us. Luckily, I have recently been enlightened to the fact that it is much more.
We live in a broken, sin-filled world. Not a one of us deserves God’s Love. Not a one of us deserves God’s forgiveness. Yet, God loves us unconditionally. God forgives us EVERY time we screw up, time after time. God sacrificed his one and only son for us. Think about that. Would you sacrifice a child of yours to pay for my sins and my forgiveness? Would you sacrifice a child of yours to pay for the sins of and forgiveness of a neighbor? Would I sacrifice a child of mine to pay for your sins and your forgiveness? I am sorry if this offends you, but no, I would not sacrifice one of my children for you. I suspect you would not sacrifice one of your children for me either. Yet our God, our Father in Heaven DID just that! He loves us that much. He offers us so much. What does He want from us in return for all He gives us? Get this; He desires a personal relationship with us. A personal relationship with us would enrich our lives, provide us peace and comfort, lighten our burdens, and so much more. A personal relationship would be yet another gift from God we do NOT deserve! This, this is what He wants from us.
So, how do we develop this personal relationship? We cannot see God. We cannot pick up the phone and talk to God. We cannot have lunch with God. Most of us cannot even fully comprehend God with our brains. These facts hide from us the obvious answer. We develop a personal relationship with God the same way we develop a personal relationship with friends and family. We spend time with them. We listen to them and get to know them. We talk and confide in them so they get to know us. We can do all these things with God just as easily as we can do them with a friend or family member here in this world. We just do not realize it.
At this point you might be thinking, “How do we connect with God when we can’t reach out and touch Him, we can’t pick up the phone and chat with him, and we can’t make plans to meet and hang out together”. The answer lies in our daily devotions. See, most of us cannot hear God’s voice in our ears as we hear another person. Yet, God has given us love letters in the form of scripture. He has expended the time and effort to write to each of us personally. Yes, scripture IS for each of us personally. Just as Jesus endured the pain, suffering and death upon the cross for each of us personally, so the word of God is written for each of us personally. The word is alive and through it, He has a means to communicate with us. We DO have the ability to “pick up the phone and talk to God”. We can talk to God through prayer. He can talk to us through His word. This is a two-way communication. We merely have to take the time out of our busy lives to slow down, quiet our minds, and hear His “words” via reading the Bible. I will not presume to tell you that you will someday hear his voice in your ears, but you can and will hear his “words” through your heart. Some of you may literally hear his voice, count yourselves lucky and blessed, but for those of us that might never hear his physical voice, we still can hear his words through our hearts and His Holy Spirit, that dwells in each of us. In addition, we too should count ourselves lucky and blessed. For neither form of communication from God is superior to the other! He communicates with each of us in the manner that He deems is needed and appropriate.
Therefore, I challenge each of you to pick up the proverbial phone EACH and EVERY day, call your Heavenly Father who loves you more than anything, and develop that relationship. I have struggled to modify my routine and fit in time to do daily devotions. Luckily, God has revealed the above truth to me and now, daily devotions are not a chore or routine I have to do. Daily devotions are something I want to do so I can talk to my Heavenly Father every day and deepen our relationship. When the day comes and I get to meet Him, I do not want to be meeting a stranger. I want to meet a good, dear, and close friend. I hope you do to as well.
