Life Takes Action

My daily devotion was about James 4:8

"Come near to God and he will come near to you."

Sometimes I just sit and wonder why God feels so distant. I often forget it is because my relationship with Him tends to be one sided; He does all the work. Ever think about past friendships or relationships you have had? Most of the time if the friendship ended it wasn't due to a huge argument or fight. Usually it was the result of one of us not putting any effort into it. I remember this one particular instance, and I always wonder what would have happened if I had put more effort into the friendship:

He was my best friend growing up, lived right across the street. I went over to his house almost everday. We always made up tv shows and acted them out, we used to make recordings on cassette tapes and pretend like we had our own radio show. We played board games like crazy (Payday was always a favorite), and when we weren't playing them, we'd play video games on the ol' super nintendo and nintendo 64. We also went through a period of time where we wrote short stories. Right about 5th grade I started public school. He was a year younger than me, so I had to make new friends in order to survive this new environment. After a year or so of having new friends, I stopped spending a lot of time with my old friend. Instead of going to his house everday, I was riding my bike a few blocks to have sleepovers with my new friends. It wasn't that I hated him suddenly, but I had the excitement of new adventures in my life. I don't know at what point I stopped talking to him. Occasionally I'd see him at lunch at school and say, "hi," but that was about it. By the time I got into high school, our friendship no longer existed. It wasn't that I hated him or visa versa; it was that we no longer were spending time together.

In the age of facebook, I was able to begin to catch up with his life. A lot has changed since we were younger. He's gone through a lot of personal struggles and decisions in his life. When I think about it, I wonder what kind of person would he be today if only I had put more effort into our friendship. Kind of makes me think about the movie "To Save A Life." Maybe he would have a relationship with Christ had I stuck to our friendship. He would have had someone to be there for him as he went through a lot of personal issues in his life.

Now I may have gone off on a huge tangent, but I felt like I needed to share that story in order to relate it to a friendship with God. According to Hillsong and the Bible, Jesus is my best friend. Much like this kid, He's been my best friend since forever. The problem is, as I move into different stages of my life, my focus gets easily moved from one thing to the next and I slowly stop making an effort to keep up with my friendship with Jesus. That's what I did in the story above. Friendship isn't one sided. Jesus can't be the only one that puts any effort into our relationship. I have to put effort into it myself. I have to draw closer to God, so that He will draw closer to me.

Robert Madu spoke at the Illinois Youth Convention over the past weekend. In his first message, he started out telling us about his experience at an airport. Going into the airport he sees these closed doors with no handles. Only when he walks up to them do they open. In the bathrooms there are sinks with no nozzles. Only when he puts his hand under the faucet does water come out. Same with the soap. In order to get a paper towel, he has to waive his hand in front of the sensor. All of these things required an action of him in order for them to respond. Relate that to our relationship with God. Jesus already died on a cross for our sins and defeated death by rising from the dead three days later. He is ready for that relationship with us, but the problem is, it takes more than that. We have to do something. We have to walk right up to those doors in order for them to open, we have to stick our hands under the faucet to get water. We have to accept the gift God is offering. We have to draw close to God and He will draw close to us.

Life takes action. Relationships take effort. Don't let the most important relationship fail because you stopped putting effort into it. Draw close to God. Pray and talk to God on a day to day basis. Spend some quality time with Him. Get to know Him by reading His Word everday. Study it. Learn about Him. Life takes action.