Episode #238 Transform Your Life: How to Share Everyday Moments with God – Small Steps, Big Faith

Hey friends, it's Jen, and we're in a series here on Good God Talks, looking at small steps that we can take to receive big faith from God. And so I wanted to take a minute and take us back to some of the foundations of how a relationship with God grows. Now, salvation is received through Jesus, and I'm not talking about the spiritual aspects of growth, while, of course, those are important. But I want to talk about the human aspects of growing our relationship.

See the way that healthy, good relationships grow as humans is through shared experiences and healthy communication.

We can see this in our human-to-human friendships and relationships. Those connections grow stronger when we share experiences together. And when we work toward healthy communication.

It's a universal truth about humanity because that's how God created us since the beginning. And knowing this about us, God connects with us these same ways. He created us for life with him, and he invites us to talk with him. To experience relationship with God means more direct connection. And today I want to focus on shared experiences.

I want you to think for a minute about someone you have a really good, close relationship with. Maybe it's your best friend or a parent or your spouse, someone in your life you're super close to.

Okay. Now that you're picturing that person, I want you to start naming to yourself all of the things you've ever done together and all of the places that you've gone with this person. That's a pretty impossible task, right?

The person that I thought of is my husband Jared, and I can't possibly think of all of the things that we've done together or all of the places that we've gone. I guarantee in the 20 years that we've been in a relationship, there are things I'm not remembering right now. The breadth and depth of our shared experiences is too numerous for me to count.

And I wanted to share that exercise with you today because sometimes we can think of shared experiences with God as being in church buildings or in serving events or at tables with our Bibles open or in prayer groups, and we can count him out of shared experiences in all of the common places of life.

But if you think back again to that person that you have a super close relationship with, there comes a time where you move into everyday life stuff together. Even if you think about a good friend, maybe you started by being in a class together, or meeting up for coffee. But at some point, for our closest relationships, we move into meeting up with shared friends or with our families, being in each other's homes, running errands together. Our closest relationships include everyday life shared experiences.
And that gets to be the same with God.

Most of us are familiar with the end of Matthew 28, which is the great commission. And it's when Jesus is sending out his disciples to make disciples of all nations. But I want to read verse 20 for us because that passage concludes with something we might take for granted and kind of overlook.It says,

“teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Jesus is with them always. Not just in the synagogue, not just on Sabbath, not just when they're sharing the gospel in the public square, he sends them out into the world and says, I am with you always.

I also want to read Matthew 14:16-17, and this is when Jesus is telling us about the promised Holy Spirit. And he says,

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (Matthew 14:16-17)

God is with us, and He dwells in us. And so every moment gets to be a shared experience that we have with Him.
Sharing our days with God can look like talking with him through the things we're doing or asking for his guidance or celebrating wins with him. Sometimes it's simply just continuing in those ongoing conversations as we go about the thing to see what he would want to draw our attention to.

And so as we end the episode today, consider what's next on your calendar. What's something else you're approaching in your day? And how can you share that with God? And as you're thinking about this thing that you're going to go do next, take this question to God and ask him about it.

God, how can I share this with you?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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