When we move out of the safe confines of a religion full of rules, regulations, and positions and into a personal relationship with God, it is a difficult road to navigate. Moving forward is greatly encumbered by those old rules that have been with us so long they have become a part of us. We do not think about them; we instinctively act or react because of them.

Before we can move forward, we have to bring those rules out of the box. We have to look at them from a distance, not from a place of proximity and connectedness. We have to coldly and objectively analyze them and listen for God’s wisdom concerning which to retain and which to dismiss. This is a difficult task and requires extensive meditation.

God is continually working with us as we attempt to build a personal relationship with Him. He has always desired this and will wholeheartedly assist us in our attempts to move closer. The clues are all around us but He requires we have a passionate desire to move into close fellowship so these clues are laid out in a fashion that demands passion on our part. As we become more intimate, we become more skilled at reading and interpreting the clues, which in turn makes us more intimate and more adept at finding the clues. Clues don’t always come in the order we would like them…what if we knew his ultimate will for our life and we rejected it or altered it because of our own humanness? Sometimes God’s silence also directs us.

Jesus gave everything in love for us. We have to have the same deeply burning desire to give everything dwelling within us. Only then can we connect with a true understanding of what God/Jesus/Holy Spirit are all about. If both God and human are working simultaneously, and passionately, it is easy to see there is no limit on the growth of the human spirit. As we begin to understand that problems and pain in our lives are not punishments, but guides placed there to direct and to teach what we need to know to move forward, they become less difficult. As we understand that the “good things” in our lives are not rewards, but revelations of the joy that God has made available, we lose that sense of pride that ultimately destroys a chance at real relationship.