Today I want to speak to you about the relationship with God—the personal relationship… and I ask each of you: Have you begun to form a relationship with God, or do you not yet have a relationship with Him?

A Personal Relationship with God

Superficial Relationships:

There are people whose relationship with God is a relationship of occasions…
One of them may spend an evening with God on New Year’s Eve, or on certain feasts… or have a relationship with God in a specific occasion or a particular request… This is not the required relationship, because it is not a lasting one, but rather an emergency relationship…

There are other relationships that fall within the scope of formalities or habit:
They take on an outward form, like a person who is accustomed to fasting on certain occasions, or is used to serving or going to church, or partaking of Communion, without any of this leaving an effect on himself!! His conscience is troubled if he leaves this habit, yet he does not feel the presence of God in his life!

He practices all these things as if they are separate from God!
He fasts and does not know what his fasting has to do with God! He prays and does not feel that he is speaking to God, but as if he is throwing words into the air! Fasting for him is abstinence and vegetarian food, but what is the connection of this fasting with God? He does not know…

Another person—his god is a god of activities that satisfy his selfhood!
The church, societies, Sunday school, memberships in councils and committees—all are activities in which he feels his self… Likewise all service, the club, exhibitions, workshops, student houses, service of the poor and shelters, and all related to that… all are activities in which he feels his existence, his work, his importance, his leadership, and fills his time and perhaps his pride with them—but he may not feel God in all of this…!

This reminds me of the saying of one of the spiritual writers: “You have spent your life serving the house of the Lord—so when will you serve the Lord of the house?!”

Another person—his whole relationship with God is an indirect relationship:
He has a relationship with the church, with the priests of the Lord, with His servants, with the deacons, with Sunday schools, with preachers, with societies, with the book—teaching it and memorizing it—with hymns—but he has no relationship with God Himself!

How strange that one lives in the house of God and has no relationship with God!
Ask him about his relationship with God, and you will face a question mark…

Other people—their relationship with God is a relationship of receiving…
He is a God of requests: I want help from Him, I want healing, I want a solution to a distress. If there is no request, then there is no need for God. As for a personal relationship with God, it does not exist.

“My son, give Me your heart”:

In the midst of all this, God calls: “My son, give Me your heart.”
You have given much of your time, your activity, your effort. You have given of your vows, your tithes, your firstfruits… but you have not given Me your heart… There is no personal relationship between Me and you… until now you have not known Me… truly it is a sorrowful matter…!

How beautiful is this personal relationship, of which John the Apostle says about the Lord: “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1 John 1). This was said by John, who lived with Christ and leaned on His bosom…

Many people care about outward, bodily virtues, without caring about the work of the heart and the spirit—the inner work in the love of the Lord!

Even among holy monks!! Concern with fasting, with types of food, with prostrations, with solitude, with silence… and perhaps with all this, the heart may truly be empty of God! If we practiced all these things in a spiritual way, we would arrive…
But often these virtues become our goal, not God!

We live in them, are satisfied with them, and rejoice in them, without caring to form a personal relationship with God! We may read the book, understand, interpret, study, attend sermons—but we do not see God in the book!

The person who has a relationship with God speaks with God face to face…
Every word he says, he feels has reached the ear of God and His heart. He feels connection in his words… Likewise in his fasting he says to the Lord: I want to fast one day for You, in which I see You, better than forty days without connection to You. In my fasting, I want to feel my weakness, so I may hold on to You, O Strength that supports me.

I want, O Lord, to know You, to experience You, to wrestle with You like our father Jacob, to walk with You like Enoch, to sit at Your feet like Mary, I want to taste You…

How deep is the phrase of the Psalmist: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Truly, what does this phrase mean? Thousands of pens cannot explain it. Only the heart, in its experience with God, can approach the Holy of Holies of it.

Have you experienced this phrase in your life? Have you found the Lord? Have you tasted Him? Have you found Him sweet in your mouth? His love is better than wine. David says to the Lord: “In Your name I will lift up my hands; my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness.” Have you experienced this spiritual satisfaction?

Have you experienced spiritual consolation, when the Lord pours His comfort into your heart?
Have you been intoxicated with the Lord in the ecstasy of solitude with Him? Have you experienced the sweetness of companionship with God, such that you hold onto Him and cannot let go? Have you experienced the sweet prayer that you try to end but cannot, finding delight in being before God, even if you stand in silence?

Holiness—as the saints said—is the substitution of one desire for another:
Instead of the desire of the world, the flesh, and material things, your heart is filled with the desire for goodness and the love of God. You become a person who delights in God, in His commandments, and in His Kingdom, and delights in doing good. Then you do not struggle to be righteous, for righteousness becomes your nature. All your struggle is to enjoy the Lord more and more: “Under His shadow I desired to sit, and His fruit was sweet to my taste.” “Your name is sweet and blessed in the mouths of Your saints.”

This is the “taste of the Kingdom” that you enjoy on earth…

You taste God in your prayers and in your meditations, which you wish would last forever. The one who pulls you away from them is like one who snatches a child from his mother’s bosom.

It is a life of joy in the Lord… a life of delight in Him…

God, for you, is not the God of books, not the God of articles and theological debates. Rather, He is the God whom you loved and thus accompanied, or whom you accompanied and thus loved. You may not be able to express Him in words, but He exists within you—you feel Him without understanding, and understanding does not matter to you. All that matters is that He is with you, and you are with Him.

If you do not have a relationship with God here, then if you ascend to heaven, what will you do? If you do not have a relationship with God on earth, it is impossible for you to have one there… He will say to you: “Depart from Me, I do not know you.”

The martyrs loved death because they would meet God through it: “I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better…”—the Christ whom you experienced, knew, tasted, loved, lived with, befriended, and had a special relationship with.

Would that you sit with God and speak with Him as a friend speaks with his friend.
Be frank with Him about everything. Tell Him: many things have occupied me away from You, O Lord. When will I be freed from them, that I may be united with You? I want to sit with You, to escape distractions and be alone with You. I want to overcome myself, to live for You with all feeling and love. I want to hear Your voice within me, to touch Your power in my will, to enjoy Your guidance, and to feel Your hand leading me…

Speak with the Lord frankly about your sins, and do not hide from Him:
Tell Him: this sin has humiliated me, O Lord, yet I love You from the depths. I fall into sin out of weakness or habit, but my depths are Yours. When will You deliver me from it? When will You enter my life and not leave me to my will, but accomplish Your will in me? When will I partake of Your Holy Spirit? When will You involve me in Your work? When will You teach my hands to war and my fingers to fight, and lead me in Your procession of victory?

I want, O Lord, to see myself in Your hand, engraved on Your palm.

It is not reasonable for me to love the world and at the same time love You. Therefore, I ask You to remove every other love from my heart. Purify me, O Lord, and I shall be pure; make me repent, and I shall repent. Make known to me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths.

Do not leave the Lord until you feel His power flowing in your being, and His love flowing in your heart, and you feel that a relationship has begun with Him…

As for the routine of worship, its forms and formalities—they are of no benefit. Do not think that religion is a set of doctrines or rational beliefs, or rituals or practices. Rather, religion in its truth is the knowledge of God, companionship with Him, friendship with Him, and love… Try to enter into the love of God, and through love all your spiritual practices will have a different taste.

Augustine of Hippo entered into the maze of philosophy and thought and did not reach God. But he knew God through love, and then said to Him:
“Late have I loved You, O Beauty beyond words.”

If you also have been late in loving Him, do not delay any longer. And if you have not known, ask that His love be poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit. Offer your vessel to Him, and He will fill it with oil…

The Lord calls His chosen ones.
They are His children who sit with Him, and He sits with them, speaks to them about the Kingdom, and grants them His love. And people see them with Him and say: God is in the midst of His people.

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 An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Eighth Year (Issue No. 35), 9/2/1977

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