Growing Closer To God: More Than Just Small Talk

It's been a while since I've written a post on this blog.

I've been trying to think of something that I could share with you lovely girls but I couldn't come up with an idea big enough to fuel an entire post. It was then that I realized...the reason why I hadn't been able to share something that God's been teaching me, is because I hadn't been giving God the opportunity to teach me something.

I mean, of course God can teach me something out of anything, but it seemed that my time alone with God everyday had gone wayyy down.

And so I decided what I would write about: Growing Closer To God

I started realizing some things about myself. I began realizing that I felt very empty I was constantly crazing acceptance and attention from others, and doubt and fear and stress would come along. And every time this would happen, I would have to think to myself...why is this happening? Why am I feeling this way? And it was because I continued to chase after attention from other people and continued to look for satisfaction in all the wrong places.

Then, when I would spend time abiding in Jesus, just sitting there and praying, putting worship music on, reading His Word...I realized that almost all of those feeling melted away. And I came to several conclusions regarding deepening your relationship with God and growing nearer to Him.

Here's they are...

You can't have a relationship with God...without God.

I remember every time I would come to God for the five minutes that I actually made time for (and I still do this sometimes), I would ask God to draw me closer to him to help me deepen my relationship with him and to deepen my faith. But as soon as those five or ten minutes were over...I went back to doing other things and would forget about spending time with Him again. It kept being the same way -- five to ten minutes with God each day and then I expected to go about the rest of my life being on fire for Jesus. But a fire for Jesus can't just be fueled off of those ten minutes.

How did I expect to have a deep relationship with God...but then not involve God?

It just doesn't work that way. If you want a relationship with someone...you have to spend time with them.

Doubt flees when we have an encounter with Jesus

This was something I learned from watching a Youtube video on the topic, actually. The video was about how to defeat doubt. We can have so many doubts that come about but when we actually take out time to spend with Jesus, when our minds are focused on him...doubt flees.

When we are full of Jesus, there's absolutely no room for doubt or fear.

Perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)

Don't cut yourself off from your lifeline

Not spending time with Jesus is like cutting yourself off from your life line. It's like...we know we need it to keep going strong but yet we find excuses not to have that time with Jesus everyday and, just like a gas tank, the lesser and lesser we fill ourselves up with Jesus, the lesser and lesser our "tank" gets and the emptier and emptier we feel.

Let's get drunk on Jesus

This was something that I learned at the girls Bible Study at my church. We had a guest speaker come and she said this: Let's get drunk on Jesus, avoid hangovers, and stay addicted.

We're looking for something that's right here.

Ted Dekker once said this: "We ask 'where is God? Where can I find Him?' but we don't realize that that's like a fish swimming frantically through the ocean...in search OF the ocean."

There's a bible verse that says "Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to You."

We don't need to look any further for God. He's right here. Just waiting for us to come to Him. And when we do, he fills us up. We don't need to look anywhere else for satisfaction or fulfillment.

#faith