Standing with others is no easy task, and it isn’t any easier to stand alone. There is a necessity for human relationships, which is a simple function of God’s created order, which isn’t easy. It is also necessary for human beings, as His creatures, to relate to Him. Yet there is something about a relationship to the divine that seems easier. You know, like a mystical and magical experience of knowing the divine, and how it unlocks superpowers, self-actualized potential, or something… 

 

Yet a relationship with God isn’t easier than with people; in some ways it is even harder. First, God is sinless and we are sinful, creating instantaneous difficulty between the created and the Creator. Next, God is infinite, while we are finite; God is a Spirit and while we have a spirit, we are not always so sure what that means. These two things alone are enough to occupy the mind for a lifetime. 

 

How do people relate to the unseen? How can humans have personal relationship with the divine? Of course one must come to faith in Jesus Christ, being born again to a living hope in Him. However, ‘how does one get saved,’ isn’t the question, but ‘how do we relate to the Holy One of God?’ How do sinful, born again people relate to the One whom they cannot touch?

 

The answer to these questions is simple, but not easy. One means of relating to God, or standing with him in a relationship, which is a great challenge, is through prayer. Challenges come when we are called to pray continuously, but also carry the notion that prayer is to be spontaneous. Conflict arises when from a heart level we don’t want to pray, but know in Christ that we are called to pray constantly. 

 

In Romans 12:12, we learn that God calls his people to, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” How we relate to God the Father is evident in this passage from Romans. If we are honest with ourselves this manner of faith in Christ Jesus, and the discipline to be constant in these things is not easy. 

 

 

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