Four friends sit around the kitchen island. Each of us has jobs, schedules, responsibilities that pull us in different directions, and it isn’t often that we have the opportunity to hang out together. But on this evening we sit together and share life.
Our conversation meanders through subjects—raising kids, travels, life struggles, etc. After a while, we settle in on a topic we four are passionate about—how God’s Word has been guiding our lives. What I find amazing is how each of us, with our wildly varied lives and challenges, finds something relevant and valuable in our Bibles.
Not that it’s a revelation every time. Mostly, it’s a guiding metronome that our lives keep time with. In this day and age, it is often said that the Bible is irrelevant, old-fashioned, and unable to provide insight on how to navigate the issues modern life presents. But each person in our group can testify that it more than covers the motivations, perspectives, and values that drive our lives.
I love how God has structured His plan for us on relationship rather than regulations. He didn’t burden us with hundreds of rules and traditions to live by so that His followers would lose all relevance in this modern world by living as His ancient followers lived. Rather, He made it so that we have to pursue Him and His Word in order to know what He expects and wants from us. He promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him.1
For me, seeking Him might be in regard to the teenagers I parent. For my friend, it may be for the business he is growing. Our third friend is dealing with the life-altering diagnosis of a loved one, and the fourth is trying to balance corporate life with his Christian calling. Each of us has sought God’s heart and mind on these issues and received what he or she needed.
We end our conversation with hugs and farewells, each of us feeling even more confident in our separate journeys with our mutual guide.
If you’d like to get started on building a relationship with God, you can do that right now by simply praying the following prayer:
Dear Jesus, thank You for dying for me so I can have eternal life. Please forgive me for every wrong and unloving thing I’ve ever done. Come into my heart, give me Your gift of eternal life, and help me to know Your love and peace. Amen.
- See Jeremiah 29:13.↑