Getting to Know Our Commander

June 26, 2014

How do you develop a relationship with someone? By spending time with them, of course.

Long-distance relationships are very hard to maintain and are quite stressful to all concerned. Even if the relationship survives the initial time of separation, often the people have changed ever that time. It’s like having to start all over again – like building the relationship from scratch – when they are able to be together again.

It’s very similar in our relationship to God. We get to know Him by spending time with Him. If we pull away for too long, we change and re-establishing the connection can be very hard. How much better it is to work continually on developing it.

This type of establishing prayer can take many forms. Let’s start with these three:

• Silent prayer – simply spending time in God’s presence, without saying a word aloud. I enjoy simply kicking back in my recliner during a quiet afternoon and opening my heart and mind to Him. It’s amazing what kinds of things He chooses to reveal to me when I do this. Usually they are encouraging words or pictures. Sometimes they are illustrations of false beliefs or identities I’ve taken on, so I can follow through and deal with them. Sometimes there is only a feeling of well-being and assurance of His love and approval. It’s always profitable in some way to take the time to get to know Him better. Honestly, I wish I had the discipline to do it more often.

• Seeking prayer – essentially, this type of prayer is spent asking God to reveal Himself more deeply. I’ve heard people say that it’s wrong to ever ask questions of God, but how else will we discover more about Him? The Bible tells us a lot, but our God wants a personal relationship with each of us. My relationship will not look exactly like yours. And when our relationship grows, we become more of who we were created to be. We are more able to bring heaven to earth.

• Study prayer – this type looks like reading the Bible. However, instead of just reading, we study it with an open heart. We ask God what He wants us to absorb from it. I’ve never been all that good at this one. Maybe I’ve just studied so much in my educational pursuits that I treat scripture like a textbook. I have found that it works much better if I ask Him what passage I should read (often at the lake near my home!) then peruse it slowly. After reading it through two or three times, I ask Him how it applies to my life and write it in my own words. Actually, it’s in His words, because I am listening to Him as I write. And those words invariably offer encouragement of some kind, adding to my relationship with Him.

The first type of prayer isn’t as simple as it initially sounds. But building our relationship with God is incredibly rewarding. And it is necessary to our mission on earth.

this is part 16 of a series on warfare.

Part 1| This Means War!