About a week ago my wife left to go stay with her sister to help her through a difficult time in her life. At the same time, and mostly to allow me to still work, my children went to stay with their Nana.
I have been without my family for one week. I have not been able to hold my wife's hand or touch her or smell her or listen to her voice (not digitized at least) for 7 days. I miss her very much. For 7 days our relationship has been on hold. For 7 days I have not been "plugged-in" to her life and her person. For 7 days the deepest interaction I have had from her is her blog postings (see image).
For the last 7 days I have spent a lot of time listening to people talk. I have heard people talk about God. I have heard them mention the name of Jesus. For 7 days I have listen to people talk a lot about religion and "churchy" things...
An interesting part about all of this is that I have not heard anyone refer to God or Jesus or their faith in a way that even slightly implies that they are in a relationship or that Jesus is alive and coming. For 7 days people have talked about things of religion and I have not seen or heard a single reference or smidgen of information that would lead me to believe that they love Him, know Him, or are growing in a relationship with Him... why?
Because you can't grow in a relationship without investing time in the relationship... you can't get to know someone by just standing next to them... you can know about them, but you won't know them and who they are...
If you want to know Jesus, you must spend time with Jesus. If you want a relationship with God, you must spend time in the Word.
My family and I have a practice of memorizing scripture together. There is nothing complicated here. We choose a verse that is special to us and we all begin to memorize. We challenge each other. We encourage each other. We hold each other accountable. We talk about how that scripture is impacting us and our hearts.
Will you join us as we follow our hearts to love and know Jesus in a deeper, more intimate way?
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