I Can’t Get Started

I’m not sure what I would do without my friend C.  She’s so great to talk to about anything really.  OK, maybe not anything, anything, but definitely a lot of things.  (I think she’d be shocked to find out about some of my skeletons)  Last night we talked for a long time about religion and our personal walks with God.  She’s about where I am: knowing that God is around, but not having the time and not making the time for Him.  I started out doing pretty well with reading the Bible each night and doing those Thankful For cards, but with time it began to be a chore, just one to cross off my list each day.  And that’s definitely not how I want to feel about my relationship, my quiet time with God.

I want it to be something that I don’t have to think about, something automatic, but not in a robotic way.  I feel like spending time with God, either reading His Word or talking to Him, should just come naturally to me.  I don’t want to think about doing it, but I don’t want it to become a mindless, thoughtless activity.  Does that even make sense?

I guess it’s something that I have to just start doing and start small and eventually it will happen on its own, without my having to force it.

I’ve come to this point where it feels like things aren’t going so well (I won’t go into details though) but I know that God has brought me to this point.  I know that right now I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m pulling back a bit from my friends because I have this tendency to rely on them to either take care of my problems or distract me so I don’t worry about my problems.  And right now, I don’t have that crutch.  God is telling me that I need to be relying on Him.  But I don’t know where to start.  I know that it’s perfectly acceptable to go to God when I’m at my lowest and ask for His help and love, but that seems like such a crummy way to go to Him.  I haven’t done a good job of building a great relationship with Him when things were going well in my life (although I always knew He was there and was the reason things were going well, but I just didn’t talk to Him) so it doesn’t seem fair for me to turn to Him when all I’m doing is asking.

I fully realize that one of the problems in my last real relationship stemmed from my co-dependence on my boyfriend.  And I know that that’s an unfair burden to place on someone else and it also goes contrary to God’s message–I should have relied on God and not my boyfriend for things.  So part of me is thinking that if I make it through all of this by relying on God and not on man, then I will be ready for a real relationship.  I’m not saying that it will happen immediately, but by making God first in my life when I really need someone, then shouldn’t I be able to make God first when things are going well?

I know that it’s time for me to stop thinking about it and just start talking to God and He’ll show me what to read.  I can never forget this time one of my old friends was having a hard time falling asleep and he started praying and some verse or psalm popped into his mind and he looked it up and it had something to do with sleeping.  God will show me what I need to read.  I just have to sit back and stop trying so hard for force something.