Your relationship with God is the most important relationship you'll ever have, and thus it deserves to be our utmost priority. And just like how earthly relationships like marriage and friendship thrive and deepen, our Father-and-child relationship with God should grow, too.
But how, you ask? It's simple. God is Father to us, and He will surely do His part in bringing your relationship with Him to an ever greater level every time you let Him. In fact, growing your relationship with God isn't that hard. It starts with prioritising it.
Are you looking for ways to help grow your relationship with God? Here are some practical things you can do.
1) Keep looking back to the time when you were saved
Are you saved? If you are, then you know your story – how we, as sinners, were so loved by the Lord that He sent His one and only Son to rescue us from the hopeless mess that we are in, so that we could become children of God, forgiven by and reconciled to Him (see John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:19). This works, always.
2) Bring your hardships, challenges and failures to the Lord
It's a lie to think that being a child of God means that we won't experience hardships anymore. The Lord Jesus said that in this world we will have troubles. So we have to face reality: we will have challenges. The great-and-not-just-good-side of it is that we can have peace because Christ has overcome the world (see John 16:33). And Jesus has given us the tools to deal with the challenges: firstly His Word, secondly the Holy Spirit, thirdly prayer.
Because we will face hardships, we should choose to look to the Lord and His strength (see Psalm 105:4). Whatever hardship you face, don't try to face it on your own. Instead, offer that to the Lord and face it with the strength He supplies. Why?
First, when we try to face things on our own, we actually tell God "I don't need you." Have you ever done that to your father/mother/spouse and realised later on that it hurt them and made them think that you don't need them? That's called self-reliance. We need to depend on God.
Secondly, when we bring it to God, we actually tell Him "Lord, I need You." This attitude of reliance on the Lord pleases Him, and brings you closer to Him.
Third, when we also approach God with our failures, we give Him room to heal us. He actually uses these to mould us and make us better.
3) Want more of Him
Have you ever been so crazy about something that you just can't get enough? We should get crazy about having more of God (see Psalm 84:10)! Ask God for more of Him. He will surely give it to you!
4) Desire less of yourself
If we want to have more of God, we'll need less of ourselves. John the Baptist said of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30)
