Quotes about Relationship

But—for good reasons rooted deeply in the nature of the person and of personal relationships—his preferred way is to speak, to communicate: thus the absolute centrality of scripture to our discipleship. And this, among other things, is the reason why an extensive use of solitude and silence is so basic for growth of the human spirit, for they form an appropriate context for listening and speaking to God.

The eternal life of which Jesus speaks is not knowledge about God but an intimately interactive relationship with him.

So, C. S. Lewis writes, our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and "trying to carry it out." Rather, "The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought, His Zoe [life], into you; beginning to turn the tin

It may seem strange but doing the will of God is a different matter than just doing what God wants us to do. The two are so far removed, in fact, that we can be solidly in the will of God, and know that we are, without knowing God's preference with regard to various details of our lives.

So prayer is a total activity, incorporating many elements essential to a personal relationship between two persons—persons different from and related to one another as the Father is to his children on earth. But still the heart of prayer is the request.

We demean God by considering him a cosmic boss who orders humans around

There is a distinctive emphasis by Jesus on loving your neighbor, your "near dweller," not upon loving "humanity" or "everyone."19 What this means is that our duty and our virtue is to love those with whom we are in effectual contact—those we can really do something about.

Nowhere is it more important to be in a conversational relationship with God than in our prayer life.

Our relationship with Jesus, which he argued ultimately allows us to establish a relationship with the kingdom of God. This relationship is one of discipleship in which we learn to live our lives as Jesus would through progressively embodying and manifesting a Christlike character, which is attained through establishing a discipling relationship to Jesus.

Sit in the companionship of God—the one who shows up and can be seen.

The heart, or will, simply is spirit in human beings. It is the human spirit, and the only thing in us that God will accept as the basis of our relationship to him. It is the spiritual plane of our natural existence, the place of truth before God, from where alone our whole lives can become eternal.

If we do seek him, he will certainly find us, and then we, ever more deeply, find him.