June 2010: Going through the motions

When I was a child, I wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. I had a tutu; I liked to leap around our living room and twirl on my tiptoes. I checked out books from the library, learned the basic positions, and even once convinced (read: begged) my entire family to go to St. Louis to see a performance of “The Nutcracker.” I even told people I wanted to be a ballerina, but something important was missing: I never took one ballet lesson. And because of that, no matter how much I twirled and leapt, I wasn’t a ballerina. I was just going through the motions.

We can go through the motions in a lot of things in our lives. Homework. Work, for that matter. Relationships. Church. Sometimes, we get so caught up in doing the things of church that we overlook the relationship we have with God. We’re caught up in a lot of very good, religious things, but we’re not doing them because of our relationship with Christ. We’re just doing them. We’re just going through the motions.

The thing is, going through the motions isn’t what God wants from us. He doesn’t want us to just do religious things that have no meaning or purpose in our lives. He wants to have a relationship with us. He wants to know you, to show you every day how much He loves you, and to change you for His glory. It’s easy to be religious and just follow the traditions or do the activities; it’s more difficult to give yourself over to a relationship with Christ and trust Him with absolute control of everything in your life. Jesus didn’t call us to simply do good things; He called us to follow Him and allow Him to work through our lives. And that implies relationship. It means trusting Him, being in constant communication with Him, allowing Him to know us for who we really are, and being willing to lay our own fears, doubts, dreams, and desires aside so that His plan can be accomplished. That isn’t going through the motions; it’s being known by and knowing God. That’s a relationship.

If you get one thing from this issue of ec, I hope it’s that God wants to have a relationship with you. He doesn’t want halfhearted commitment or religious acts; He wants you. I hope you see that in Rick Futch’s cover story “Religion vs. relationship” on page 26, Kaylan Christopher’s article on listening to God (p. 45), and David Bennett’s “More than a feeling” article on page 58. I pray that you hear it in this month’s devotions and can’t get that truth out of your mind. I hope that you realize as you read this issue that your faith isn’t something you do; it’s something you live. In relationship. With Jesus Christ Himself. Pursue that relationship this month. Don’t just commit to follow Christ. Surrender. Lay it all down. Stop going through the motions.

Because He doesn’t want all of that. He simply wants you.