Relationships and friendships are so important to us that it would be hard to imagine living without loved ones and friends to talk to and be with. We somehow become more of a person through our relationship with others.
So it is also with our relationship with God. God became one of us in Jesus—whose human life included all the daily realities of self-care, work, tiredness, loneliness, celebration, and choices that we know—so that we might more clearly see God’s longings for an intimate relationship with each one of us, whom God has created in God’s image. Relationship with God, like any human relationship, is a participatory experience in which both beings communicate and listen. God offers unconditional acceptance of us and the promise to never leave the relationship. Jesus’ farewell promise to his disciples is “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
This excerpt is from “Spiritual Health” by Ginger Anderson-Larson in Our Journey to Wellness, a 2013 resource of the Women of the ELCA.
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