We finished our lent discussion group last night. This has been an interesting 5 weeks. We joined in with the Alglicans at St Marks. All very nice people and along the way we had some quite interesting sessions. The course was on relationships. Last night we focussed on our relationship with God.
The night opened with a simple question : Do you have a personal relationship with God?
I couldn’t answer.
Obviously (to me) it is impossible to literally have a personal relationship with God, because God isn’t a person. And yet everyone else there could relatively easily decribe this personal relationship they had. Perhaps they meant they had a personal relationship with Jesus and being good trinitarians this meant a relationship with God. Again though I struggle with the notion of a personal relationship with Jesus who, although admittedly was human, is now dead. I have never been part of the ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ fraternity, pledging their love, their life and everything to the ‘Lord of the dance’.
And so today I have been wrestling with the question. My conclusion is that my ‘personal’ relationship with God is manifest in my personal relationships with the persons I meet. If I treat every encounter with another human being like it is an encounter with God then surely that is a very desirable state of affairs. I might shout at God ocassionally but I would be mad to pick a fight. I might express my love for God but I am unlikely to pledge my troth. Above all else I would hold the time I spent with that person as sacred, I would make the most of every encounter.
Still a thought in progress, be insterested to hear what other people thought of it.