God is NOT a matchmaker

This has been something I have been thinking about over the past few months and since I sort of feel like I have to play catch up on everything going on in the past few months I felt like I should share. I was taking a shower - which is usually guaranteed quiet time with God - no interruptions and nothing to be distracted by. I was thinking about how I pictured God working in my life in regards to my relationships - or lack thereof. I have never really been in any dating relationship and have not felt like I missed much either. Don't get me wrong I have had a spirit of loneliness looming over my shoulder. I know what it feels like to be feel worthless and rejected but that is nothing compared to the love and attention I receive from Jesus Christ himself. As I said before I am definitely not one to share my personal life even with close friends I find myself choking on my words. As I am learning to put myself out there - even if right now this feels like I am typing a diary only to be seen by me, I have learned I need to share ALL that God is doing in my life and this is part of it. So back to being pursued by my Savior. A few years ago I was in Gods presence and had one of those God moments that changes you life forever. I was laying on my back and in perfect peace when I had a vision. I probably had visions before but this is one of the first visions I recognized as being from God right away. So when I saw myself on a cliffside overlooking the ocean I was a bit confused as to how to respond. Should I continue watching? Should I treat this as a dream? should I wake up to reality? I decided to keep watching. As I walked closer to myself I noticed I was crying. Well, sobbing I guess would be better way to describe it. I had my head buried between my knees as I clasped both shins with my arms. I could tell I was miserable but didn't understand why until a man approached me from behind and right away I recognized it as Jesus. I could not tell you facial features or describe a physical appearance to you but I knew His Spirit no matter what he looked like on the outside I knew what His heart looked like. As He approached He lovingly put his hand on my shoulder and knelt down to where I was sitting in a ball. His face was right next to mine as He quietly asked "What's wrong?"; even though I knew He already knew. I looked over at Him as if I had seen Him thousands of time before and simply stated "Its not fair....Its not fair I am here alone once again. Whats the point if I do not have anyone to share this with. I want to be held by a real person - someone I can see, hear and feel on a regular basis." I would have continued my little rant further but it was then I realized that I was not the only one sobbing. I looked up and saw tears starting to form in my Jesus' eyes. I gasped for a breath of air as I realized I just broke my Savior's heart. Then it was my turn to ask "What's wrong" although I already knew the answer. I knew that Jesus had been everything I needed from this life and more and that I was taking Him for granted. Yet He took me off guard when He responded "Honestly, I am not ready for you to be in love with anyone else." I had to gasp for another breath. It hit me all at once it was not about me - it was about Him. He was jealous for me. He wanted me all to himself. That answer was better than anything I could have known. I was the apple of His eye so to speak and nothing could have compared to how I felt. I was overwhelmed and when He continued with a question that I have had to answer every single day since I barely could even speak. He asked Can you wait until I am ready? He could barely ask the question. The moment was so intimate that its hard to put it into words. To finish the story, I managed to quietly answer Yes. As I said before i have had to remind myself and answer that question everyday since. This brings me to the point. God is NOT a matchmaker. He loves to watch those he loves fall in love but he is not some old lady like from Mulan or the fiddler on the roof who takes status and money and power or even personality into account to make a match. He plays more of Will Smith's character Hitch type of role. He creates opportunities, He gives us the pat on the back, maybe even tips or pointers on how to relate to the other person but He is by now means some stranger that looks at the characteristics of each of us and puts us together like barbie and ken dolls. If He did, His church would not have the same divorce rate as everyone else. If all relationships were completely controlled by God then all relationships would be perfect. God isn't a puppeteer, He is a father. Whether or not we take His advice or whether or not we even ask for it is up to us. There is no reason not to ask Him because who better to ask how to relate to our significant other than the One who not only knows them better than they know themselves but also know us but than we know ourselves. He loves us more than we could ever comprehend and although every single relationship has its downfalls He truly wants us to be happy. With all of this said, He will do whatever it takes to keep us in a good and healthy relationship but if we ignore Him and if He is not the center of that relationship we are not giving him much room to work. I may or may not be ready for a relationship but what I have realized is that it isn't about me - its about Him. The question is Is He ready for me to be in a relationship? I have complete faith that when He is I would be the first to know.

Time with God

Yesterday morning I was in a waking up phase and decided to ask God something. I asked Him what does time with Him look like, what is the formula to setting time aside for Him? What should I be doing differently if anything at all. I am starting to realize that spending time with Him does not look the same for everyone. There is no formula, no right way to do it. When someone decides on a specific hour to spend with God they are either showing their dedication to their relationship with Him or succumbing to a superstitious assumption about how their relationship with God should work. For some people it as just as bad as an athlete wearing the same dirty sock to every game or a fan wearing the same jersey while watching a football game. I think that some people think that if they don't spend time with God for that hour then their entire day is ruined that without without their hour then they will lose touch with God. I actually agree to some degree. Just as when you don't spend time with a friend, or a sibling or any loved one, when you don't spend time with God you can and will loose touch with Him. But why an hour? why not 5 20 min intervals? Why not 45 mins? I know that all of this seems petty and like I am picking out little things to argue with but I feel that I need to work through it so here it goes:

On one end there are those of us who need an hour at the beginning of each day to set our minds on Christ. If we don't schedule in an hour each day it wont happen because of all we have to do each day, God may get put on the back burner. Then there are those of us who may fall into a religious routine. A routine that is hard to escape from because just as an athlete may not want to wear a different sock some people get so accustomed to one set of ideas that they do not want to change out of fear. Now with that said I do not under any circumstance believe that people should ignore God or ignore a need to set times specifically for Him. However, God is a God of the unexpected so we cannot put him in a box of an hour but we cannot ignore that hour either. This is where my predicament comes in. If I am supposed to set a specific amount of time for God each day and I am also supposed to not get into a religious routine then what in the world am I supposed to do?

I wish I had some profound answer but I don't. All I can gather is that I cannot do anything without God. Also that my relationship with God does not look like anyone else's relationship with Him. So if someone else spends an hour each day reading the Bible and follows a certain routine with God's grace then so be it. If someone else spends an hour here and an hour there at different times throughout the week by God's grace then so be it. If I don't have a specific hour and by God's grace I find multiple times throughout my day to remind me of what God has done then so be it. The problem I find is when I decide I dont need to read my Bible because I can worship Him without it or when I feel I am OK without reflecting on what God did for me on any given day. Anytime I take it upon myself to judge where I stand with God is the day I am at fault and the mindset I need to change. I know when I should be doing something else. I know when I need to use scripture to figure out what to do next. I know when I need to praise and thank God for what He has done. I know when I should cry out to Him. I know when I should spend time in His presence. The problem becomes when I think I know I have had enough, that I am OK without it. The Holy Spirit is extremely active and when we allow Him He will lead and guide us a to a deep and fulfilling relationship with God that will not look like any other relationship with Him. We all can understand the power of prayer, the need for scripture, a call to worship but we will never understand someone else's relationship with Him. So basing our relationship off of others will never work. Asking for guidance by someone else who has been through it will never hurt but if all we ever do is do what everyone else is doing and never experiment on our own and learn from our own mistakes then how much can our relationship with God grow?

Life is a series of experiments...

Yesterday I was watching House and had a mini-revelation. I guess it was the combination of the episode plus the sermon at the church I visited yesterday. In the house episode there was this blogger who needed to tell everyone about every little detail of her life. I realized how much I missed talking about every little detail of what God has been doing in my life. Last year I had a group of people I could share everything and anything with, but this year I am sort of struggling for companionship. Anyone who knows me would think of me as the last person to do something like this. I am not one to share my personal life with strangers so this is not me at all. However as I realized yesterday its not me I want to share -- its God. I have a living and loving relationship with God that I need to share. Just like a parent tells the world about the cool things their children are doing. I have this unexplained need to tell everyone about how God is impacting my life. I know that this is not easy to understand. I guess that is the point. How easy is it for anyone to describe their relationship with anyone. How do you classify your relationship with your loved ones? Its almost impossible because every individual is different and every individual relationship is just as different. It is incredibly hard to describe. Words fail. This is something I have learned recently and will never forget. It is amazing to me how the same word that is used to describe how much you like a television show or a food or whatever other meaningless object is used to describe how much God means to you. I cannot possibly say I love spaghetti and I love God and mean the same thing. Words fail. Plain and simple. This is not an attempt to describe God for the sake of describing Him. This is a mere outlet for which I can describe everything that God is to me. It will be a pale comparison and may only serve the purpose of a diary but I am willing to try and see where it leads. This past Sunday, the pastor I listened to said something I may never forget. He said that in life we experiment and sometimes we fail and sometimes we succeed but the point is to try. At least I will have an opportunity to learn from this even if it fails. I just pray that God uses me to speak (or type) and I guess we will see what He does with His blog. I hope that this is turns out to be something others can connect to, learn from and identify with. Even if this turns out to be my own personal diary it would benefit me to type out all that God is doing in my life and be able to refer back to it in the future.