Today I was re-reading the first few pages of Searching For God Knows What (check out Donald Miller's Web site here), and came across this:

"To be honest, though, I don't know how much I like the idea of my spirituality being relational. I suppose I believe this is true, but the formulas seem much better than God because the formulas offer control; and God, well, He is like a person, and people, as we all know, are complicated. The trouble with people is that they do not always do what you tell them to do. Try with your kids or your spouse or strangers at the grocery store, and you will see what I mean. The formulas propose that if you do this and this and this, God will respond..."

Okay, so Miller is a brilliant creative nonfiction writer and can get away with more than most Christian writers just because, well, he's Donald Miller, but there's something bigger here, I think.

We throw around a lot of jargon like "A relationship with God is vital," or "My relationship with God is my all," but I got to thinking about that when I came across this passage. How often do I take intimate relationships that are the most consistent (most loving, most important, etc.) --my parents, for example-- for granted?

A lot.

In a time when inconsistency is the norm and fulfillment hasn't really taken root anywhere, our understanding of covenantal relationships has become skewed.

It is woven into our everyday living, really.

How, then, can we even begin to approach God -- the most life-giving, interactive and transforming relationship we are able to have?

Miller, in Searching..., goes on to explain that our basic ideas of God, in their very first stages, can be trapped inside a box which we have carefully wrapped and, at our own leisure, will open and deal with tomorrow, or something like that. (He really doesn't use that exact language, but ding, ding!, I know I do this.)

Perhaps God would have it for us to begin to understand that His relational characteristic is much more than, well, just a characteristic, but something greater -- something life-consuming...something even revealing our own insecurities, doubts and questions.

It's crazy to think that God's constancy, of which we have no accurate example than, say, our family or close friends, could be so complex! The simplicity of the gospel message, I think, is so wonderful because of its ability to communicate a God who is, in fact, mysterious and passionate and complex in a way that is overwhelmingly awe-striking.

In our struggle to understand God as One capable of relating with and to us infinitely deeper than any other person we know in the 'here-and-now,' it brings comfort knowing that as we wait upon Him (Ps. 130), putting all the hope we can in what He has promised us, He will hear us. Beyond-question, unchanging listening.

To just be with God. No agenda. No desire for concrete 'productiveness' in our interactions with Him. To be satisfied -- and thankful (really, really thankful) for what He's doing in our lives and in our hearts.

Keep serving Him.

-Jessie