How do you relate with God?

That's a pretty loaded question, isn't it? Whatever your response is, it's probably not neutral. We don't get a lot of "meh" when it comes to relating with the creator of the universe. We could be drawn to memories of times our heart was "strangely warmed," as John Wesley would say. Or, perhaps the strongest affect is the primal fear we can experience when God's voice seems hidden.

Either way, with the emphasis on Christianity generally being relationship over religion, we can be struck with a sense that a how-to guide on God-ward relationship would feel like a lot of work. The stakes are high, and we can often be afraid that the exercise of trying to develop better relationship will leave us feeling alienated, alone, and in the dark.

Now, that can happen, especially if we approach God like a project. Read the Bible for this amount of time. Pray for this many things over a half hour. Chart my warmness toward the triune deity over a month to see if I'm trending the right direction... If I'm ticking the boxes of religious activity and grading myself like this is a school term assignment, of course that's not likely to build "relatedness" between two persons.

In human relationships, the best way to build intimacy is to just do life together. Of course, we can emphasize treating each other respectfully, affirming each other, serving each other, and a number of other things along the way. And those are all good things, but none of them is a substitute for the simple act of relating, day by day. Your spouse is not a project. Your friend is not a project. Your child is not a project. Neither is God.

So perhaps a better question could be framed as, how does God relate with us? And the fact is, God has done some very different things over the course of human history.

What I will posit is this: we get stuck trying to relate with God in ways that ought to be relegated to history. Over the next few blog posts, I hope to show you what I mean.

In the beginning, God was accessible. He walked in the garden with his creation and had friendly fellowship with humanity. Of course, humans sinned, lost the garden, lost the fellowship, and lost the ready connection. Once the world was fallen, there was separation from God. In other words, God was generally inaccessible.

Throughout hundreds and thousands of years, God could be related to in some manner by faith. While most of the world languished in a pursuit of evil desire and purpose, Hall-of-Faith figures like Noah and Abraham stand out as those who cast their vision toward God. But these were the exception, not the rule. And, we have hundreds of years at a time for which there is no recorded revelation from God.

Even more poignant is the emphasis on Israel. The Israelite worship process highlights God's otherness and the magnitude of sin's effect on the creation. The institute of animal sacrifice was not intended to open channels of communication. In fact, nearly all of the people were prohibited from approaching the most holy place, and even the high priest had to follow procedure.

We can rightly point to the prophets as the target of God's revelation. But again, these were the exception that proved the rule. Generally speaking, not just anyone got to hear from God at any time. And when the prophets did hear from God, it was not normally an occasion of joy for them, either.

Fast forward some thousands of years: we in the church age should not be living under this principle that God is inaccessible. But we often do - especially those of us who consistently deal with negative affect (anxiety, depression) and other aspects of the fog.

When the level in our spiritual energy tank is naturally low, we often resort to a scarcity principle when it comes to approaching God. We can feel like we don't have the wherewithal to come to God's throne, because if we spend that energy in prayer, we certainly won't have the residual verve required to act on what he tells us. We'll cope by telling ourselves that God has not generally answered when we call anyway.

And so we get stuck in this bygone age, like the people of old who had to wait for words from prophets. We'll even anticipate that on occasion, we may get a word through a prophet. In our tendency toward negative affect, we'll presuppose that such a word will almost definitely not be a positive one.

The dread cycle continues: low energy driving low interaction, and the resulting loneliness from low interaction driving continued low energy level.

But just as God did not leave creation in that mode of relationship, he does not want us to remain stuck there either. In his goodness and wisdom, he had a plan for which these models became part of the tapestry of thousands of years of history - but it all led to something else.

We need to be open to a different mindset, one where we see that the inaccessible God has made himself accessible. So as we look toward the next mode in another post, I want us to ask ourselves:

What will I do with open, ready access to God?

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• Photo by Calvin Craig on Unsplash