If you are reading this, you want to build or continue to grow your relationship with God. I too, reached a point when I realized that the efforts I was giving to God were not my best. God deserved so much more than my daily prayer and the worship time I spent on my way to work.
I wanted more than anything to hear from God. I wanted to gain clarity from him and to know if all of the visions I had for my life were according to his plan. However, even in the daily time I spent with him, I still was not as close to him as I wanted to be.
Have you ever felt that God was calling you closer? Do you not understand what actions you needed to take to get there?
One day a saw a video of someone speaking on how waking up at 5:00 AM every morning to journal and listen to God was their way of spending time and hearing from him. It dawned on me that all I had learned in my Christian journey so far was how to pray and talk to God but I never really learned how to listen and hear his voice.
What I hope to accomplish by writing this blog post is to share what I did to build my relationship with God. In hopes that my story and tips will help someone else do the same. If you have any other tips that have helped you, please feel free to comment on and share this post. We are all a work-in-progress and could learn from each other. Enjoy!
Building a Stronger Relationship with God with these 4 Tips
1. Make God a priority first thing in the morning!
When I first started intentionally spending time with God to build a stronger relationship, I woke up super early in the morning (5:00 AM) to spend an hour with him before I got dressed for work. I would wake up, brush my teeth, shower, then go to my prayer closet to spend time with God.
Waking up this early was really hard for me ( and still can be). I do love my bed but I can truly say that intentionally waking up to spend time with God has improved how I look at the day ahead tremendously.
Every day I pray that he would lead and guide me through the day. As well as hold me from becoming consumed with the problems of the world.
When I started acknowledging God first thing in the morning, I instantly felt closer to him. It helped me show God that I could not do life without him and that I needed him to guide my footsteps in every single activity that I had planned (and unplanned) for the day.
“Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.”
Mark 1:35, NLT
2. Commit to building a relationship with God (As you would with any other relationship)
Don’t we all have people in our lives that we have to actively put forth time and effort (i.e. call, text or schedule plans) to maintain a relationship? For this relationship to grow, there should be two parties putting forth an effort to make the relationship work. If we can commit to making plans with our friends, to call our significant other every night before bed, or even occasionally check in with our parents to reassure them that we are still alive, then we can intentionally make plans every day to spend with God.
Think of how God may feel if we spend time with him inconstantly? Our family and friends dislike when we go MIA on them so I am positive God feels the same way. If we want to have a relationship with him, we have to nurture and build it just as we would any other relationship we want to maintain.
To do this, I try to commit time every day to spend with God, and him only. No distractions.
3. Learn More about Jesus
As I grew closer to God and started reading the bible more, I learned that Jesus was faced with many of the same things I have been faced with in life. Think about it. Jesus was God in the flesh. If I wanted to grow closer to God, shouldn’t I be studying the person who walked the same path as I but who aced every single test of the world?
I learned to study Jesus. Studying Jesus helped me focus on how he handled situations in the bible so that I could be more like him. I eventually saw that when I started to feel any type of emotion that was not Godly, I would ask myself – “What would Jesus do?” This may seem super cliche. However, this has kept me calm in the midst of many traffic jams (Remember, I am a work-in-progress too lol).
4. Give yourself Grace
Be patient with yourself. There will be times when you sleep in instead of waking up to spend time with God, or when you feel like you can not hear his voice. Remember that your journey and relationship with God is a life long progression. Intentionally spending time with God is a great step in the right direction. Also, remember that there will be mistakes made on your journey and that there may be times when you veer off track. The important thing is that you find your way back onto the correct path. Give yourself the grace that God has given you.
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
Matthew 7:13-14, NLT
