Considering God through the eyes of a relationship

​I've told this story before. Some of you have probably heard it. But Goff's devotional this morning leaves me needing to tell it again. Maybe to you - maybe to me.

I was in my mid-twenties I suppose. Life had it's challenges, not the least of which were drinking and gambling. I lived life in the fog of hangovers and debts, all the while trying to figure out the next drink and the next bet.

I'd dropped out of college. Went back to college. Dropped back out of college. You get the picture.

During this time, I went to work for a local carpenter. He was a Christian. I guess I was too. Only he somehow managed to be a Christian who smiled all the time; I was the Christian who wandered through life wondering why God left so many people without a reason to smile.

So more often than not, his smiles aggravated me.

One day, we were all sitting around at lunch inside the frame of this house we were building. I wasn't much in the mood for anyone's happiness. Maybe this carpenter sensed that. Because when I looked over at him he was eating his sandwich with a smile no mere sandwich is capable of producing.

That's when I asked him the question, the answer to which shaped my life as much as any answer ever has. I asked him, why are you always so happy.

He asked me, do you really want to know.

I told him I did.

He told me he had a relationship with God that made it really hard for him to NOT smile. That was it. That's all he said.

He went back to eating that sandwich. He didn't whip out his bible or hand me a pamphlet or lead me in any chants or prayers. He simply went back to eating and smiling and I guess hanging out with his friend: God.

I've been pondering his words for over 30 years now. Really, it's one word: relationship.

That was the first time in my Christian life I'd ever considered God through the eyes of a relationship. To me, God was always this distant thing: a cross on a chain - a bumper sticker - a last ditch effort to pull me out of the latest hole I'd dug for myself. God was always the most convenient place or thing or whatever exactly he or she was to blame for a life falling apart.

A relationship, though? A person who could be so closely by my side that I'd be overwhelmed by the joy of a bologna sandwich? I didn't know THAT God.

But that day I started looking for him. That day I started looking inside me for the God to love and smile about, and I stopped wildly pointing my finger to the sky with blame over my inability to feel anything but hurt.

It has been a journey. I haven't arrived. I'm quite sure I never will. There are still days I find myself looking to the sky. I have my finger cocked and loaded and ready to point. But then I hear the voice of that carpenter. I see his smile. I hear him say "I have this relationship with God that makes it really hard for me to NOT smile."

So I look inside. I look for the friend that carpenter introduced me to that day. Many days that friend will hand me a bologna sandwich. I thank Him. And I smile.