Lori is my wife. I have the certificate to prove it. There is nothing I can do to make myself any more or less her husband.
One way I can view our marriage is as a completed transaction. I spent all kinds of time and energy landing her, and now that that’s done I can move on to the next thing. Guys tend to operate this way. There are all kinds of phone calls and romance when you’re dating, then the marriage happens and no more candles, no more flowers or poems. All that energy gets directed elsewhere.
But that doesn’t fly for long, and a lot of us have learned the hard way that marriage is not a completed transaction; it’s an investment opportunity. And the same is true of our relationship with God. It’s not a one-time transaction—it’s an ongoing opportunity to invest.
I know a lot of you are already feeling the guilts. You’re like, “Oh, man, are you going to talk about spending time doing God stuff? Because I tried that and I got nothing out of it.” No, I’m not talking about spending time. I’m talking about investing time.
Lori didn’t marry me so she could be ignored for the next 40 years! She married me, and I married her, so we could continue to build our relationship and grow closer over time. The same is true with God. He doesn’t want you to just accept Him once and never talk again—He wants to develop a growing relationship with you.
This takes effort sometimes, just like a marriage relationship. But like my marriage to Lori, the payoff is huge. When you invest time in God, it’s not to get Him to love you. He’s already crazy about you. Instead, connecting with Him lets you also experience His joy and peace in your life.
Don’t settle for a passionless, distant, transactional relationship with God. He’s offering you so much more. Make the decision to invest.
