Our relationship with our Heavenly Father is much like a marriage. Each season brings new growth to the relationship if we allow it. Going through hard times while leaning on the comforting shoulder of our Papa results in a surrender to his strength.
Quote by KRIS VALLOTTON
Imagine that you are your spouse began attending a marriage seminar. Friday night the speaker spoke on sex in marriage. How much fun it can be, and gave tips to a better sex life. They spoke for hours on the importance of a healthy sex life and how it is needed for a intimate marriage. You took notes and agreed to have sex more often, it seemed that you weren’t doing it enough. You learned that sex sets off chemical reactions in your body, and makes you feel alive. It feels great when you are in unison with one another. More sex is more fun. Sex is fun when it is done in the right way.
Saturday , the day session was all about the individual gifts that each of you have. You took quizzes to find your strength in love language areas. You asked your spouse what they needed most from you in the marriage. How the received love, and how they loved to show it. You then had an example up front of a couple showing love to each other in their unique ways. You took notes, and promised to show your spouse more love with YOUR gifting that has been placed inside you. This lesson was perfect, as you had been feeling that your giftings were overlooked. It turns out that your spouse finds strength and wisdom in your giftings, and how you show love. You leave that session feeling more secure than before in your marriage, as you know that you can work together in your giftings to love one another. Since you are one, you can learn from each other the gifts that may not come naturally.
The seminar ends, and you are sent home with two key foundations to form your marriage upon. Sex is good and fun, and God created it so we could be intimate, just as we are intimate with him. Out of sexual relations new life is birthed. He created us each differently with unique talents to serve and love our spouse.
You go home and practice those two things. For months, maybe years the sex is fun. You serve each other, but there seems to be things lacking from your marriage.
Now lets look at this from a spiritual angle. God has designed us to be intimate creatures, so he gave us the desire to worship. When we worship him , we feel his presence come upon us. It brings us to life and encourages our spirits. Worship was created by God, just like sex was for intimacy.
God also created us with unique spiritual gifts. Each one of us is a part of the Kingdom in a special way. When we use our spiritual gifts we are serving Him, and others. It is a excellent way for us to be selfless, and humble. It is not within our strength that we can use our giftings effectively. It is Him in us and through us.
True worship, and true obedience in spiritual gifting comes from one thing, the love that we have for the Father.
I feel as if my walk with the Lord has been laid upon a large table in front of me. In the form of sheets of paper , my life with Him is in piles.
On the left is what I valued in Him in that moment:
Worship. Spiritual Gifts.
On the right is what I had not valued in my walk with Him. Resources, and other vital parts of my life as a Christian woman.
The pile was high, so high that it may be difficult to name it all. Growing up Charismatic, I lacked these vital things:
Studying the word. Not just a verse here and there, but REALLY knowing it. Being held accountable in any type of bible study, or small group. Serving my community through doings other than Spiritual Gifts. ( Serving the homeless, outreach ) . Placing my self worth in more than how often I spoke in tongues, and how many Prophetic words I got that week.
Are Spiritual gifts and worship vital to how intimate you are with the Father? YES. They are so important that I am sure I could not live without experiencing them. Having tasted His presence in a very real way in the Charismatic church many times, I am grateful for these good gifts he has given us.
But there is MORE to our walk with the Lord that I believe I need to fully blossom.
As young parents, we need community with other parents with young children. To have people to come along side us to lift us up, and push us to be our very best. Bring us a meal when we have add a new child to our home. Cry along side us after a bad day. Pray with us when life gets hard.
We need COMMUNITY of like minded believers.
There is strength and wisdom in numbers.
We are more than our Spiritual Gifts. We have more to offer this world , along side those gifts.
Just as a marriage cannot be healthy without sex and serving each other selflessly, marriage cannot grow without healthy communication. It doesn’t help to have married friends your same age and season either.
A dear friend of mine said something that stuck with me, and changed the way I viewed my walk.
” I came to realize that I was fat with spiritual gifts and the move of the holy spirits presence. For years I lived on this stored fat until it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t long before I knew I was anorexic in the biblical teachings of Jesus Christ.”
I am learning to allow ALL the things HE has to offer us as his children to enter my walk. Not just the fun , or easy parts. Not just the thrills and chills, but the foundation of who I am in Him.
