Hey God, Can We Just Be Friends With Benefits?

So, Journey was very, very good tonight. We discussed the second half of Luke chapter eight, and how God works to restore people. How he restored a man who had been possessed by assumedly hundreds or thousands of demons and been afflicted with a lifetime of pain and struggles. How he restored a woman who had suffered through 12 years of bleeding that caused her to be unclean, caused her to be an outcast, and caused her to be without physical, emotional and spiritual things. And how he literally restored life to a body.

And we discussed how it might just be important to want to seek God for who God is, not just what God can do. To seek a God to commune with, to love and live with, not just a God who can do things and a God who is a spectacle and a show to behold.

Slowly, but surely, the wheels in my head started turning. I'm not the deepest and most understanding theologian. I'm also not the most understand or knowledgeable husband in the world. But I am a thinker. And, even though I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I will never fully understand my wife (or women), I also know that I have a better understanding of my wife than I do of God.

Sure, it helps that my wife is finite, and I can have tangible interaction with her, and I can directly see the impact my words and actions have upon her. But, still, I understand her better than I understand God.

And so, this leads me to believe that I understand how to relate with my wife better than how I understand how to relate with God. And so I began to connect our discussion with a chunk of scripture. A passage in Ephesians usually read at weddings to give instructions on how we should relate to our new spouse. But maybe it's there to teach us about how to relate and seek and interact with our God.

And I started to think we should be relating to our God as we (should) relate to our spouses. Not as we treat a girlfriend, someone we commit to for a season and then consider upgrading with or moving on to someone better or different. And definatley not as we treat a "friend with benefits" (note: I hate that term and what it means in terms of relationships, but it worked so well for the examples flowing in my head), someone we get involved with only for the stuff they can do for and with us.

But how often do we (do I) treat my Savior, my Lord, and my God this way? Do I come to Him and seek His ways, until I see something that looks like it might be a better option? Or come to Him only when I need something or want Him to help me in some way.

Yet, when I honestly look at my self, and I honestly look at my heart, when I honestly look at my hopes and dreams and desires ... I see that I don't want to serve and interact with my God in those ways. I want to interact with my God in a way that I daily walk and talk with Him, and daily seek to emulate Him and learn about Him and His heart.