Conversation

 Conversation 

Have you ever just had a conversation with the Lord?  I mean a real two-sided conversation, one in which you and He both got to speak?  How about one of those two-way conversations that isn’t about anything deep but just a simple conversation like you would have with your spouse, or a friend?  I wonder if we understand that frequency of conversation tells a lot about the quality and depth of relationship that we have not just with people but with the Lord?

The slogan that I have heard in the church most of my life is that it is not a religion it is a relationship. While this is the truth of how things are supposed to be, I wonder how many of us really have quality in that relationship. Sadly, I think that we don’t spend the time developing the relationship we have in Christ through genuine conversation.  We have settled for a acquaintance level relationship instead of the intimate one that is made available to us. 

Many of us have treated our prayer life as more of a one-sided begging, I want, I need, a please help me time. Don’t misunderstand, we are to bring to the Lord all of our needs, wants, worries and anxieties but that isn’t all prayer is to be.  At this point many of you are probably thinking, “well of course we should also be bringing our praise” and this is true we must bring our praises to Him but that isn’t exactly what I meant.  Yes, the Lord loves it when we praise Him but again this is something that we make just a one-sided thing.  

Think about it if all your spouse did was praise you, which some of you are saying “that would be a nice change”, but never listened to you that wouldn’t be much of a conversation life would it?  What would be the quality of your marriage if that is all that happened?  How long do you think the relationship would last if that is all that happened every day?  Honestly the praise would be nice but without a real back and forth conversation between the two of you the marriage would not be a healthy one and it probably wouldn’t last. 

Contrary to what many think we weren’t made for praise or for that matter worship either.  Honestly do you think that Jesus came to earth to live as a man and then die on the cross for our sins just for us to praise and worship Him?  This may mess with some people’s way of thinking but Father, Son and Holy Spirit don’t need us to praise or worship them.  There are and have been and will always be living creatures before the throne who praise and worship God always.  That is what they were created to be and do.  We were made for something very different.  We were made for relationship. Jesus died for us to have relationship with the God of the universe.  Don’t believe me, go back to Genesis and see.  There is no mention of Adam and Eve praising God nor of them worshiping God.  What we do see is the Lord coming to walk with them in the cool of the evening and Him have conversation with them. We see that He had relationship with them.

Next let us look at Jesus who is our example for living the Christian life. What did Jesus do? He often withdrew from people to go into the wilderness and pray. (Luke 5:16).  Have you ever considered what Jesus’ prayer time was like? I don’t believe that His time in prayer was spent the same way that I have spent most of my time in prayer.  I know for a fact that He didn’t spend anytime repenting.  Did He spend this time just asking the Father for help and strength? Did He spend it praising and worshiping?  Those are possibilities.

While I don’t know for sure what Jesus did exactly in these prayer times, because the Bible does say specifically what He prayed in those times, I believe that He, for the most part, was having conversations with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  I mean before He came to earth what did the Father, Son and Holy Spirit do?  I would think that they had conversation one with the other.  There a record of one conversation they had in Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  I would venture to guess that this wasn’t the only conversation that was had between them. 

If our relationships with people are so dependent upon our communication with each other wouldn’t it make sense that our relationship with God would also be dependent upon this as well? 

Have you ever considered that the Lord just wants to shoot the breeze with you? You know, one of those conversations where He just wants to hear about your day and where He tells you how pleased He is with you.  How He just loves you and approves of you because you are His child. I know for some this may seem like sacrilege because for many of us the only time we recognize and hear God or believe that God is saying anything to them is if it is a rebuke.  For others we only hear when He speaks to us is when He has something grandiose to command or called us to do or be.  While rebukes, commands and callings are things that the Lord speaks to us there is more than that He is speaking and wanting us to hear. 

For some this is going to be hard to hear and understand but I promise you it is the truth. He is also wanting us to hear how much He loves us and approves of us. He wants us to hear Him asking how our day is going.  There is so much more that He is wanting us to hear that is more than a rebuke and more than commands and callings then I have time here to list.  

God desires to have a deep, close and intimate relationship with US!  To accomplish this, we must have conversation. How else can we really have it? The biggest obstacle to us have conversation and intimate relationship was done away with at the cross.  Now the biggest obstacles we face is understanding that this great big, wonderful God wants to actually have that intimate relationship and that this type of relationship is built through conversation and that He desires to have these conversations with us and for us to make the time to have these conversations.  

The quality of relationship is measured but the quality and frequency of its conversation. 

Genesis 1-3

Isaiah 1:18

Revelation 4:1-8

Jeremiah 29:12-13

Jeremiah 33:3

Psalm 32:8-9

Hebrews 10:22