Many Christians are secretly distressed because they feel like their relationship with Christ is not as intense or constant as it is supposed to be.
When speaking about Christ, we Christians naturally use the only language available. But using language to capture the Reality of God is like trying to use children’s numbered blocks to teach quantum physics. It is simply insufficient for the challenge. The language we employ to describe our relationship with God/Christ is precisely the same language we employ to talk about our actual, human relationships. We say that we “walk” with Jesus; we “talk” with Jesus; we “spend time” with Jesus; Jesus is “beside” us; Jesus “hears” our prayers, Jesus “holds our hand,” and so on. But when it comes to Jesus, those words are not true at all in the same way they are when we are speaking of regular people.
And that difference can create some stress in the lives of believers.
The reason any given Christian is so prone to feeling like his relationship with Jesus is less than it should be is because the Christians around him are forever describing their relationship with Jesus in human terms. Then when he does not experience Jesus with anything like what many describe, when he cannot hear Jesus talking to him, he feels inferior or ashamed. He cannot help but think that the relationship others seem to have with Christ is better or richer – more real – than what he has experienced.
Do not worry that you do not really see, speak, talk, or walk with Jesus. No one else does either. People think they have to act like the relationship they have with Jesus is just like the relationship they have with humans, but that is just a conceptual misunderstanding. Jesus is spirit.
No one ever gets human-like feedback from Christ that is any more real, specific, or pointed than you do. Nobody on earth is holding hands with Christ. Nobody sane is having a conversation with Christ or God where they hear answers coming back at them. Those TV preachers who say that they have heard God’s or Jesus’ voice telling them to build this building or do that mission are lying through their teeth just to get you to send money.
You “hear” God within your heart; many call this the Holy Spirit. Jesus does not communicate with you so that your ears can hear what he says. God/Jesus communicates to you within your mind and heart in a language that you, and only you, can understand.
That is the reality of anyone’s relationship with Christ.
