Relationships - our lives are full of them! Some warm our hearts and make our lives worth living, while others challenge and stretch us. There are also some that we feel indifference toward. They really don't impact our lives in a deep or lasting way, so we put no effort to deepen them.
Although there are people we just "click" with, for the most part, relationships that we cherish did not develop over night. It took time and effort from both parties to become bosom friends.
Time is key in nurturing a relationship: sharing your joys and sorrows, your hopes and dreams, your fears and concerns. Revealing yourself - warts and all - is part of the process toward intimacy . . .and then the awesome realization that you are loved anyway! What a feeling of freedom this is! What a gift.
This is the type of relationship that our God wants to have with us. It's also the one we should want - no- long to have with Him. Like our human relationships, this will take some time and effort, but as the saying goes, "you can't outdo God in His generosity." So whatever little steps we take, He will take His giant steps toward us.
God is the only One, who truly knows us through and through, and still loves us madly! He knows everything about our lives, but is so delighted when we share it with Him. He longs to spend time with us and is thrilled when we do. By holding in His heart each care, concern and worry that we share with Him, He lightens our burden, and gives us the grace to bear it. He is always opening His heart for forgiveness, and has a feast in our honor when we return to Him. What a passionate Lover He is!
We desperately need to turn our hearts toward Him! We need to desire, with every fiber of our being, an intimate relationship with God. We need to do what we can to get to know Him and let go of any indifference or laziness on our part. We have a hole in our heart that only He can fill, and as St. Augustine said so many years ago, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in Thee." Put out into the deep, and find the relationship that you have yearned for all of your life. Reach out to the One who longs to be your "Bosom Friend."
Oh Avia Joy, what a beautiful image and how comforting to imagine our God holding our each and every care, concern and worry in His most precious heart. How much lighter and loved does that make one feel? How grand to think of Him having a feast in our honor once we have asked for forgiveness!
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