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What does it mean to have a God-centered relationship, and what does that kind of relationship look like? I have been struggling with putting my girlfriend's relationship in front of my relationship with God. In turn I feel disconnected from God and find myself struggling with the relationship with my girlfriend. I know the truths in my head, but my heart is struggling to accept them.
Thank you. Your honesty is beautiful and encouraging. And I think you’ve asked one of the most critical questions of all: what does it really mean to have God at the center of our lives?
Before we get to the subject of your girlfriend, let’s start with the basics. As you know, each person is born with himself at the center of his life. No way does that change… EVER…unless God does something about it (which, as you also know, He did!).
But even when His Spirit frees us from what scripture calls “the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21), there is still a battle between Self and Spirit. I still Want My Way. He requires that I Obey Him. Clash!!!!
Here’s how Paul describes our struggle. “So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). There has been a lot of debate about what is meant by “flesh,” and I’m not going to go there now. Suffice it to say something in me is hanging on to my “I-wants.”
Paul goes on to explain in chapter eight that it’s up to us to “set our minds” on the things of the Spirit (verse 5). He also uses the phrases “walk according to” and “live according to.” What these all boil down to is that we must choose: will it be God’s way or our way?
You’ll notice too that it’s not a once-and-for-all choice, after which we’re free to do whatever we like. Rather, it is a day by day, even minute by minute, wrestling to choose to “live according to” His desires and not our own.
Sometimes the choices are really big, and we take a lot of time thinking them through. But honestly, most of our choices are little and seem to be no big deal. In fact, a lot of them we don’t even recognize as choices. The word “habit” would fit better. It’s what we always do.
But when you pile up all the tiny “this way instead of that way” moves we make over the course of a day--that’s where we can discover who is really at the center of our lives. Are we choosing things that bring us closer to God, or are the self-indulgent choices of our lives heading us away from Him?
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