Have you ever been in a relationship that just got boring? So maybe the things you once did together are no longer thrilling.  The love doesn’t feel is electric. And what was once exciting is now, just Monday, maybe in the beginning, meeting for a cup of coffee was the highlight of your day and now it’s a major inconvenience. But what do you do when it happens with your relationship with God? What do you do when you’re bored with God? 

If you are in a place where you don’t sense God’s presence, your faith doesn’t have the same fire and you feel like you’re just going through the motions, maybe you read your Bible, you say your prayers, but it just all feels flat. There are some checkpoints that can help you to rekindle your relationship and these checkpoints are similar to the ones that we experienced. 

Like with your car, we have check lights for a lot of different issues. We have a check engine light, low gas light, open door lights, and the purpose of these check lights is to alert you to a problem and you could ignore these check lights but to your own peril. And the same applies to our spiritual check lights.

So, today I want to talk to you about four areas that you need to check if you find yourself bored with God.

Check #1 – Check your expectations. If you’re the type to say, “God, when are you going to and fill in the blank.” Why aren’t you and fill in the blank then? It’s possible that your expectations are off and you lost the point of your relationship. Look, it’s dangerous, it’s a dangerous place when a Christian reaches, a state of entitlement. Unfortunately, we often make our relationship with God all about us and what we get from it. Well, this doesn’t bode well in any relationship, especially with our Heavenly Father who has blessed us so abundantly, so if you find yourself constantly looking for experiences, encounters, miracles, blessings, or otherwise needing to be wowed by God, you’ve likely slipped into a state of expectation an unhealthy state of expectation in your relationship with him. If God is only exciting when he’s showing up and showing out in your life. There’s a problem.

Now, imagine that I came home every day from work and I expected my husband to just wow me. I expected him to provide me with an intense emotional connection. Wow me with even bigger surprises than yesterday and otherwise bend over backward to prove that he loves me. Wouldn’t that get old and exhausting? It would get incredibly exhausting for him and I would now become entitled because it’s now all about me. How much more are you going to be able to do? The truth is, we should be there for God, our prayer should not be that God what are you doing for me? But rather God, what do you want from me? Colossians 1:16, says it best, “for by him all things were created in heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.” Check number one, check your expectations.

Check #2 – Check your deposits.  What are you putting into the relationship, look you would never think that you could go to the bank and withdraw money from an account that you, never deposited into would you? While our relationship with God is not quite the same. We could never outgive God. And we certainly don’t have to earn our Salvation. What we get out of a relationship, however, is often linked to whatever we put into it. And there was a time in my Christian walk where I would spend about 5 minutes a day in prayer, another 5 minutes in the devotional and then expect God, to give me these amazing revelations into his word and we get frustrated when it wasn’t happening, and then I realized that I needed to put more in, in order to be able to pull from it. I needed to dive deeper into his words to understand his heart, his nature, his truth and I began to give more of myself. I gave more of my time by spending time in his presence. Even if it’s felt like I got nothing out of it.

I gave up things that I loved like TV or food and I would start fasting all because I wanted to put more into this relationship. 2nd Corinthians 9:6 says that “Whoever shows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever so is bountiful, will also reap bountifully.”

This doesn’t just apply to finances as so often preached. This applies to all types of giving. The more I sowed into my relationship with God, the more I reaped and so, can you. 

Check #3 – Check your influences. An unknown author once said, “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” It makes a difference who you spend your time with if you have children, you know, how important it is to know who your child is hanging out with and we often think that because we are past the formidable years that we don’t need to be as careful or as a countable, but everything we do and everyone that we spend time with affects us or insects us. Proverbs. 27:17 tells us that “iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another.”

So the question is, who is sharpening you? Are you the most knowledgeable in your sphere? Do you have no one that you’re accountable to? Is there anyone in your circle that you report to regularly to sharpen and help you to keep the spirit alive? If not, then you are no longer being affected and you’re likely being infected. There is no neutral in the spirit realm. It’s either Heavenly, or it’s demonic.

And a little bit of a side note. We talked about the formidable years. We want to make sure that our children are surrounded by people who are going to help them grow and be a good influence to them. Well,  the same is true for the formidable years in our walk with Christ. If you are a baby Christian, or if you are new in your walk, you’re going to want to be extra careful who you’re allowing in your life and to speak into your life.

Check #4 – Check your pace. The number one, excuse for not spending time with God is busyness and we believe the enemy’s lies that we don’t have time to be with God. And when the truth is, the opposite is true. I remember Martin Luther was a devout man of prayer, but like the rest of us, he was very busy. And one day after realizing all the things that he needed to accomplish instead of skipping prayer. He said this, “I have so much to do today that I am going to need to spend three hours in prayer to be able to get it all done.” His busyness drove him to pray more. We live in a fast-paced world. But Romans 12: 2 reminds us, “don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that by testing you may discern, what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

My friend, we cannot expect a relationship to flourish if we’re too busy to spend time in it. So do you need a spiritual checkup? You don’t have to wait for an indicator light to go off to maintain your spiritual health. We go for annual physicals for our bodies. We take our cars in for regular oil changes and checkups. How much more important is our spiritual health it’s easy to go through life, especially a busy one ignoring seemingly insignificant issues. But if you are harboring unforgiveness, if you have unhealed wounds, if you’re struggling with mental stronghold, these can be a hindrance to the abundant life that Christ died for you to enjoy.

So take a moment and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what he needs to reveal so that he can heal what he needs to heal. And I pray that your passion for his word is sparked a new with a fire that cannot be quenched. So what do you do when your faith needs rekindling if you are wondering where God’s blessings are in your life? 

I want to invite you to jump back to our earlier episode called “God, why aren’t you blessing me?”

If you are struggling in your faith, or you want to grow in your face, I want to invite you to join us for a free 5-day Mountain Moving Faith devotional. It is my gift to you because I believe that you too, my friend can have Mountain Moving faith.