How a relationship with God changes over the years

For some reason I had a brief vision the other day. I remembered myself being 17 years old. I was in a church service standing during worship time raising my hands and singing praise songs. I remembered how that felt and I thought about that for a few moments.

I thought about how naïve I was. I thought about how unprepared I was for the future. I thought about how my relationship with God back then was all about how that made me feel.  Back then, I was about being right. I was about convincing others to think the way that I did.

And then life beats you up. Although I hated the beat downs along the way, they all play a role in teaching us how the world really works.

The real world is not about singing and feeling.  The real world is about loving God and loving others.  It is not pie in the sky but boots on the ground.

I used to think that if you trusted God, everything would work out as you wanted. No pain, no cancer, no difficulty. I had no concept of the pains of adult life or of the transitioning into adult life. As my children like to say "Adulting is not any fun." I had no concept of marriage and divorce. I had no concept of trying to cover bills. I had no concept of keeping cars running, insurance costs rising, family troubles and the like.

Back then, I had no concept of loneliness or struggle and no concept of doubts and how our relationship with God changes over time. 

In my opinion, my relationship with God has changed for the better. I have learned to allow myself to have doubts and to work through that. Today I don’t stand in contemporary worship and raise my hands and praise the Lord. Today I sit in traditional worship and I say "thank you." That’s my prayer every day "thank you Lord!"

Today, I see church, no longer as something that I do on Sunday morning but as an every day part of my life. Everyday, every where that I wake up, I say thank you God. And for me, that prayer is enough.

Thank you is a real prayer. It is a prayer of submission. It is a prayer that sustains me no matter what is going on.

And so it is a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

And so it is a beautiful dya in God's world, be sure to see the good.