Routine or Relationship?

Is there really a difference between routines and relationships? Routines and priorities? There is, and there’s a big one. I think I’ll tell you a little story on how I’ve been feeling lately.I’ve been really committed to God lately – I mean I’ve been writing God’s Word, trying to read it through in a year, and doing my “Quiet Time” in a book that I have. I mean I’ve been in God’s Word for more than an hour a day. I’ve been going to Church and Youth Group every week. My friends and I get together every week for a Bible Study. God was my number one priority in my life – or so I thought.

I started getting no pleasure out of writing His word, or even hardly out of reading it. I started to feel like a failure, like a little ant in a huge world. I felt like I wasn’t accomplishing any of my goals I had set for myself, and I felt like I wasn’t getting anything.

I almost felt like I was sliding backwards, like what I was doing was for nothing. I felt like I wasn’t getting anything out of reading God’s Word. I was getting more and more behind on writing God’s Word, on reading the Bible through in a year. My prayer life was cold, only a short little prayer here and there throughout the day. I was pushing myself way too hard, and I knew I needed to slow down, but I couldn’t – or I’d feel like a failure. I had set a goal to write the entire Bible. I had set a goal to read it in a year. I felt like if I stopped doing any of those two things or anything else I was doing, I’d be a failure and I wouldn’t have accomplished what I thought I needed to do. I didn’t want to feel like a failure. I already felt like a failure enough as it was – I already felt I hadn’t accomplished what I should of.
My “routine” with God was controlling me to a point that I was becoming blind to it. I felt like I was making God number one in my life, when really, I was just making Him a routine. I was making Him a routine in my daily life more and more as each day passed. I knew I needed to slow down. So I took a week break from writing God’s Word, and I decided that I really wasn’t “behind” in writing it – that I would just try to write my daily goal, and that’s it.

During that week I was almost relieved – I felt I could sit down and read a book without feeling guilty. I would do my Quiet Time and try to catch up on reading my Bible in a year. I was still blinded. My “routine” was almost controlling me.
Well the week passed and I was back at it again – writing God’s Word, trying to read it in a year, and doing my Quiet Time. I still felt I was doing what was right. I still felt like God was number one. Until it hit me – during all this time that I’ve been in God’s Word, I’ve hardly been talking with God.

No WONDER I’ve been feeling like such a failure when I wasn’t even talking to God. What’s a relationship without talking with the person?

Think about it. Say you and your best friend pass in the halls of school with a glance, and that’s it. Every day, you and your best friend only exchange a glance or a small smile. That’s what I was doing to God, only exchanging a small glance with Him. I was blinded to what I was really doing. Sure, I was in God’s Word every day, but I wasn’t even talking to Him! Imagine how He must’ve felt. Imagine how He feels when we make Him a routine and not a relationship. Imagine how you would feel if your best friend made you a routine. If they talked to you every day just out of routine of talking to you every day. Pretty soon you and your best friend would get bored of each other. Thank God He doesn’t get bored of me!
Just today as I sat down to write, once again out of routine, I stopped myself midway into the second or third sentence. I had just now figured out what I had been doing for several months now. I stopped myself and decided to walk outside and have a good talk with God, something I hadn’t done for a long time. I told Him how I had been feeling, how I had been making Him a routine. I asked Him to tell me what He wanted me to do with my life, because I had been doing so many things without going to God about it first.

And then Colossians 3:23 came to me, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” Right away I thought, “Ok God, what does this verse have to do with how I’ve been feeling lately? I’m so confused.” And then it became clear to me – “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.” With all my heart? I was so absorbed in my little routine that I wasn’t doing it with all my heart – I don’t even know if my heart was in it at all. I wasn’t enjoying the pleasures of having a true relationship with Christ.There is a big difference between routine, relationship, and priority.

If you look the words up in the online Webster Dictionary, this is what you’d find:
Routine: “1 a : a regular course of procedure” and another definition, “b : habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure.”
Relationship: “1 : the state of being related or interrelated”
Priority: “3 : something giving or meriting attention before competing alternatives”
Those are very good definitions. Mine would be a little different though.
My definition of routine is something that we do every day out of just doing it every day… or out of habit.

My definition of a relationship with Jesus would be absorbing God’s Word without making it a routine, praying to Him with sincerity from your heart, and working at whatever God calls you to do with all of your heart. Like Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” That last part really gets to me. “It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” I’m not serving myself, I’m serving God. So why should I make Him a routine, when making Him a routine isn’t serving Him? That’s more of serving myself – or even hurting myself and my walk with God. Thank God that He’s so forgiving!

My definition of priority would be making something number one in your life without making it a habit or a routine. In my situation, it would be making God number one in my life without having Him here just when I need Him or without making Him a habit in my daily life.
Of course I’m still going to get into God’s Word. God tells us to do that. The thing I’m going to try not to do is make Him a routine like I have been. I’m also going to try to heat up my prayer life with God. Is God a routine or a relationship in your daily life? If He’s just a routine, I’d try to slow down a little, like I’m going to try to do. I’m telling you, making Him a relationship would be so much better. I’d get so much more pleasure from reading His Word, and not just making Him a habit.
So it’s your decision. Routine or Relationship?