How it All Began

My college roommate came to visit me this weekend. I love whenever I get to see her because our relationship is easy. We lived together for two-and-a-half years. We know each other. So no matter how much time passes between when we talk or see each other, we just sort of slip back into step. When I need something or when I just want to talk, she's there. She'll drive four hours to see me and then spend the weekend watching a bunch of stuff with me about dead British people (Bright Star, The Young Victoria, and The Tudors). She might, in fact, be my only friend who would have willingly watched my John Keats movie with me--I attribute this to the fact that she lived with me in college when my love of all things Keats began. But really, she drove four hours to get here, and we basically watched movies. Our relationship is one of those where we can just be quiet, we don't have to talk all the time, but it still works. It's like your favorite pair of shoes or pajamas. Comfortable.

We've been friends for so long that's it's easy to forget why we started being friends in the first place. We met during sorority recruitment our freshman year of college (we ended up joining the same sorority). We were sitting on the front porch of a sorority house waiting to go inside. It was a relationship of necessity really; we were both bored and needed someone to talk to, so we just started talking to each other. That was seven and a half years ago, and she is still one of my best friends. I guess my point is that, in our lives so full of relationships, we get used to them, we forget how they started, we start taking them for granted.

As I sat in church this morning, I realized that this is what has happened with my relationship with God.

I feel like I've gotten to a point where I am so busy doing what God's called me to do (like teaching) that I don't have time to spend with just God anymore. And I think so much about what I need God for in the middle of the day (like loving my students) that I forget how our relationship started. I'm used to God being there, so I take Him for granted.

It hit me almost immediately how ridiculous this is. Yes, God has called me to teach. But what He has really called me to is a relationship with Him. And yes, He gives me the strength to deal with difficult students. But what He's really done for me is so much greater than that. To get at it, you have to go back to how our relationship started.

Like everyone in this world, I was a messed up sinner who had no hope of saving herself. Enter God, who knew me completely, knew how messed up I was, and decided I was worth it anyway. This is how our relationship started. So while now I think I need God to get me through the tough parts of my day, the reality is that I really needed Him to save me from myself. He didn't do it so that I could teach one day. He did it because He loves me. Because He wants a relationship with me.

Remembering how our relationship started puts things back in the right perspective. I don't need God because I'm a teacher. I need God because I'm a sinner.