My Masochistic Tendencies...

I have recently been thinking a lot about the motivations I have to pursue a relationship with God.  They leave me unsatisfied.

You see, very often I find myself feeling guilty about not reading my Bible enough, not praying enough, not knowing where a particular passage of scripture is or not knowing what the Bible has to say about this or that.  Other times I will think about heaven and hell - what will they be like?  If we really can't imagine how awesome heaven will be and how nasty hell will be this is pretty serious.  I can imagine a lot (I think).  Translation: I'm pretty sure I don't want to be spending a week in hell much less eternity.

So here I have two motivations: guilt and fear.  How many relationships have worked out for you in the past that were based on those two premises?  Were they satisfying?

What God wants from me is a relationship based on love.  Where this breaks down is I have such a hard time realizing God's love for me.  I have not tuned myself properly to recognize where God is at work around me, so He is relegated to more of a figure to be seen far off than someone who is working in my life today.  Does God love me?  This becomes difficult to answer affirmatively if I am not regularly experiencing Him in my life.

God becomes real to me in my life when I start looking for Him.  When I am listening to God, He will show me where He is working.  When I am pursuing that relationship with Him I can start to see that He is in my life waiting for my attention.  He's got a lot more patience than I do that's for sure.  When I finally have this relationship in the right standing I find I have a desire to read my Bible enough, and to pray enough.  I don't have the guilt motivator anymore at that point, and the fear is gone too.

The crazy thing is, I feel so much more at peace within myself when I have this working properly in my life.  Why is it so hard for me to keep this up?  It's like I'm a masochist or something.  Well, not really, I've just got too much stuff blocking my vision...that is a whole new topic...