Having a DTR with God
[Guest Post by Jaimie Bowman – I always love it when a fellow blogger becomes a fellow author. She just self published a devotional for mom’s and I can’t wait for her to share one with you! BTW, check out her post she wrote for her own site about her publishing process and how to get the book inside you OUT!]
In high school I had a best friend who was a guy, and at some point our relationship began to take a turn.
I still remember the bench that we sat on when we had the infamous “D.T.R”- a Defining the Relationship talk. It was there that we both, rather awkwardly, expressed our feelings and whether or not we wanted to take things to a deeper level.
Fast-forward eighteen years, and I felt like I needed to have another talk like that. This time it wasn’t with a boyfriend, it wasn’t with my husband, it wasn’t even with a friend. It was with God himself.
Have you ever had a DTR with God?
It goes something like this: God pulls at your heart somehow — maybe through a worship service, through an experience with Him, possibly through a verse, maybe even through a song, and you know that He loves you. You know that He wants you to be closer to Him. Your heart flutters a little, because you are reminded that He saw you in that moment.
He whispers, “My child, I love you. You are mine. I am with you.”
When you have those moments, you might be reminded of when you first accepted Christ into your heart – the exhilaration, the peace, the overwhelming sense of love that He had for you. For awhile, you feel the feelings too. You want to be close. You start reading the Bible again. You worship with heart abandoned. You respond, “Yes! I want to be closer to you, Lord! I’ll do whatever it takes!”
But then weeks go by, you get discouraged, and you feel far from Him.
I know this roller-coaster life of faith we live. Being a believer for more than 30 years now, I have had my ups and downs of feeling close to the Lord and then very, very far from Him. But I believe it’s time for you and I to have another DTR with the Lord. He is calling out to us each day, wanting us to make time for Him to have that conversation.
How are you doing in your walk with the Lord?
After I had two children, I found myself far from the Lord. I didn’t know how to talk to Him anymore, how to incorporate Him into this new life I had, other than whispering, “help me!” throughout the day. I stopped spending time with Him altogether, and my Bible started to collect dust.
I felt Him calling to me but I didn’t know how to respond. I was afraid He’d be disappointed in me. I was afraid He might require more of me than I felt I had to give.
But that’s not what happened at all. He said, “My grace is sufficient for you, and my power is made perfect in your weakness.”
Wherever you are at in your walk today, take time to have a DTR with God.
Evaluate where you are at with Him – are you close to Him or far from Him? Is there anything He is asking you to do that you are resisting? Is there any area of your life that you are holding back from Him? From His view of the relationship, He wants to be closer to you. It’s up to you.
If you are also a mother who struggles with connecting with God during this season, I’d like to recommend a book that I wrote called Breathe: 31 Moments with God {for Moms}. This is a book of Scripture verses and 10-minute devotions to help you reconnect with God. This also makes a great gift for Mother’s Day, as it can speak to women in any stage of motherhood.
Whatever season you find yourself in, today I hope you are encouraged that Christ wants to be closer to you. He loves you and is waiting for you.
Jaimie Bowman is a minister, speaker and writer who lives in Southern California. She loves speaking truth into women’s lives and helping them find their unique purpose. Together with her husband and two sons (ages 5 and 7), you can often find them stuck in traffic on the 405, trying to find new places to explore. Jaimie blogs regularly at The Wonder Years and you can find out more about her at JaimieBowman.com.
