God Desires Relationship with You

God Desires Relationship with You Written by Maggie Ohland Growing up, I believed that my relationship with God was dependent on me, and what I did or didn’t do. When I chose my own way over God’s, I not only felt the separation that comes with that, but I felt a complete and utter breaking of my relationship with God. My natural inclination was to pretend I had it all together, to try to fight my way back into right standing, and to bring about my own redemption by my own power. Time and time again, God has shown me that I do not have to make our relationship work on my own. But it wasn’t until recently that I began to understand what God actually desires from me in our relationship. In Isaiah 30, Israel is choosing anything and everything but God: enemy alliances, temporary wealth, and false hope—whatever they perceive will keep them safe, prosperous, and comfortable. But all this striving amounts to nothing, as God promises the consequences of their sin will come crashing down around them (v. 13). “Yet,” says God to his children, after all their running and rejecting, “the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” (v. 18)