One Year Slips into Another

The year is fresh.....like 10 minutes fresh. It's a beginning. There are so many things in this life that we can label beginnings. Beginnings are a human construct. They let us gauge exactly when something starts. They define it for us and yet beginnings can't really and truly be defined or measured. For example is there an exact moment a relationship begins?  Oh there might be a first meeting, a first conversation, a first glance but does that "begin" a relationship or is it something more than that?

If you are like the average person, you have started a relationship with God, forgot it, lost it, recovered it and renewed it several times already. That doesn't make you bad, it makes you human.  Sustaining a relationship with God is like any other relationship, something that needs to be nurtured.
It's unlike any other relationship because of God's unending patience, his willingness to welcome us back with open arms and his tendency to "nudge" us into remembering Him.

A deeper relationship with God means getting out of your head and into your heart. We can study, we can read the Bible, we can "know" things about our church and our belief system but until we "feel" God and his presence in our lives it is hard to sustain a relationship. Oh, don't misunderstand, there will still be times where we just go through the "actions", where we may even start to question our own sense of direction, where we just participate because it is expected. Those are rough times for sure. Times of trouble and doubt. 

Ultimately the whole purpose of Soul Care is to build a stronger relationship with God that lives in our hearts. It's too easy to uproot a relationship built in our heads, on logic and thought and "learning".  But one that's housed in the heart can endure almost anything.

 

Hugs to each one of you and may our journey through 2015 be filled with God's presence.