6 ways to revive your relationship with God

Life gets busy and sometimes, in the middle of trying to stay afloat, we drift away from God.

Here are some ways to help you find your way back to Him:

Talk to Him

Just as with any other person in your life, communication is essential to strengthening your relationship with God. When you are saying your prayers, close your eyes and picture Him right next to you, listening sincerely to everything you are saying. Talk to Him as a child would talk to their parent. He is there to listen to all of your questions and concerns and to provide you with guidance. Talk to Him as often as you can. He is there for you not only in times of need, but in times when you just want to talk. Praying connects God with His children.

Obey Him

Obey God’s commandments. None of us are perfect. If we were, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. We grow and develop through this life so we may be reunited with God in the end. The least we can do for Him is to try our best to obey His commandments. We should be kind and honest toward others and attend our church meetings as much as possible. In obeying God’s will, we become brighter and stronger in spirit, integrity and mind.

Study the scriptures

Scriptures are meaningful and beneficial study material when we want to strengthen our faith and relationship with God. They allow God to speak to His children. Scriptures also give a glorious account of spiritual moments throughout time. The stories in the scriptures are dealing with similar circumstances to what we are facing today, at least in principle. Learning about others who have had their faith and patience tested can give us courage to prevail through our own times of trial. Making time to study the scriptures each day can fully revitalize your tired soul.

Listen for Him

Though we may talk with God often, we may not be opening our ears to hear His answers and guidance. When you are finished praying, don’t quickly turn on the loud movie you were watching or immediately climb into bed for the night. Take time to stop, look, and listen for God’s answers to your prayers. Sometimes you may not be receiving an answer to your own prayers, but God may prompt you to be an answer to someone else’s. Make sure you listen as much as you speak with Him. Communication goes both ways.

Show gratitude

Show your Father in Heaven that you are grateful for all of your blessings. We receive blessings, and sometimes we are quick to ask for more before we take the time to thank Him. Say a prayer of sincere gratitude. Being grateful for God’s hand in your life will make you more appreciative of His constant presence and your purpose here on the earth. Being gracious goes hand in hand with expressing humility.

Be mindful

Be mindful of God's presence in your life. Though it may seem like He is far away at times, He is not. He does not ever leave your side. It is easy to get so caught up in the happenings of the world that we forget to look for God's presence in our lives. In these moments, try to be grateful and aware of how much He has blessed you and continues to bless you each day. Being humble and showing sincere love and respect for God can bring even the most deadened relationship with Him back to life. Cherish your relationship with your Father in Heaven. He is the greatest ally and guardian you can have throughout your life.

Religious violence

Religious violence is undergoing a revival. The past decade has witnessed a sharp increase in violent sectarian or religious tensions. These range from Islamic extremists waging global jihad and power struggles between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Middle East to the persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar and outbreaks of violence between Christians and Muslims across Africa. According to Pew, in 2018 more than a quarter of the world's countries experienced a high incidence of hostilities motivated by religious hatred, mob violence related to religion, terrorism, and harassment of women for violating religious codes.

The spike in religious violence is global and affects virtually every religious group. A 2018 Minority Rights Group report indicates that mass killings and other atrocities are increasing in countries both affected and not affected by war alike. While bloody encounters were recorded in over 50 countries, most reported lethal incidents involving minorities were concentrated in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Hostilities against Muslims and Jews also increased across Europe, as did threats against Hindus in more than 18 countries. Making matters worse, 55 of the world’s 198 countries imposed heightened restrictions on religions, especially Egypt, Russia, India, Indonesia and Turkey.

How is it that religions - which supposedly espouse peace, love and harmony - are so commonly connected with intolerance and violent aggression? Social scientists are divided on the issue. Scholars like William Cavanaugh contend that even when extremists use theological texts to justify their actions, “religious” violence is not religious at all - but rather a perversion of core teachings. Others such as Richard Dawkins believe that because religions fuel certainties and sanctify martyrdom, they are often a root cause of conflict. Meanwhile, Timothy Sisk claims that both hierarchical religious traditions (such as Shi´ism) and non-hierarchical traditions (such as Buddhism) can both be vulnerable to interpretation of canon to justify or even provide warrants for violent action. 

With notable exceptions, interfaith efforts to prevent violence and promote peace suffer from a credibility problem. Part of the reason for this is that religious groups frequently adopt a ‘thousand flowers bloom’ approach to peace-building – fielding multiple activities without solid evidence of their effectiveness. According to Catherine Osborn, interfaith institutions can be effective, but success often comes down to the extent to which religious leaders can work with the ‘internal policers’ within their communities to cool down hotheads and prevent escalation. In the end, religious groups must hold themselves to the highest standard. This requires, at a minimum, doing no harm. It also means being accountable about what strategies work, and which do not.

A related challenge is that most interfaith measures to promote peace and reconciliation are seldom documented, much less evaluated. As a result, the persistent and patient support provided to high-level policy initiatives goes unrecorded, with other organizations often quick to take the credit. A number of today’s most successful arms control and peace-building norms are the fruit of interfaith dialogue, even if this is not always acknowledged. This gap could be bridged, however, by developing partnerships with universities and undertaking robust monitoring and evaluation. This way, interfaith groups could better understand what aspects of the peace architecture are working, and which activities to discard.

Finally, religious groups and the interfaith community could usefully get more proactive about peace-making. This will require leaving the safe zone of like-minded religious organizations and engaging more fulsomely with international agencies and the business community. Religious leaders should also become more literate with new technologies, not least social media, finding ways to promote positive values both on- and offline. And successful instances of interfaith cooperation - including through powerful networks like Religion for Peace - need to be better marketed. This is because signals and symbols of collective action across religious divides are needed more than ever in our disorderly and fractured world.

For millennia, every religious tradition has either fallen victim to or sanctioned violence. Consider Saint Augustine and Saint Aquinas who laid the foundations of the 'just war' doctrine in the cases of self-defense, to prevent a tyrant from attacking, and to punish guilty enemies. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others have long invoked violence in the name of religion. In some cases, as when state and religion are intertwined, mass violence may arise. Unfortunately, the risk of sectarian violence is unlikely to go away: more than 84% of the world's population identify themselves with a religious group.

Violence inspired by religious intolerance is easier described than defined. It spans intimidation, harassment and internment to terrorism and outright warfare. Usually it arises when the core beliefs that define a group’s identity are fundamentally challenged. It is ratcheted-up by ‘in-group’ communities against other ‘out-group’ communities, often with the help of fundamentalist religious leaders. Some researchers such as Justin Lane refer to the sense of threat among insiders as "xenophobic social anxiety", which - when combined with political and cultural exclusion and social and economic inequality - can escalate into extreme physical violence.

Religious leaders are often criticized for not doing enough to stem religious violence. By not publicly condemning every act of extremism, entire faith communities are presumed to be somehow complicit. This is unfair. Indeed, there are millions of people of faith who are actively involved in helping the poor and marginalized and fostering reconciliation in the aftermath of war. They may be mobilized through their churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, or work through international humanitarian agencies and missions overseas. While regularly accused of fanning the flames of sectarian violence, religious leaders are frequently trying to do the opposite, including mediating peace agreements and promoting non-violence.

In an era of turbulence and uncertainty, interfaith action may offer an important antidote to religious violence. Religious communities can and do offer a reminder of the core principles of our common humanity. While not the exclusive preserve of faith-based groups, the conscious spread of values of empathy, compassion, forgiveness and altruism are needed today more than ever. The persistent calls for patience, tolerance, understanding, face-to-face dialogue and reconciliation are more important than ever given today’s spiralling polarisation and the dangerous anonymity provided by social media.

In fact, ecumenical groups have played a behind-the-scenes role in some of the world's most successful peace efforts. High-level mediators like Archbishop Desmond Tutu helped lay the groundwork for peace agreements, from mediating between rival South African factions in the 1990s to averting a bloodbath in Kenya in 2008. The World Council of Churches and All African Conference on Churches have also played a role in mediating peace agreements since the 1970s. Italy’s Sant-Egidio has supported interfaith dialogue and campaigns to prevent and resolve conflicts and promote reconciliation from Albania to Mozambique. And groups like Islamic Relief, among others, have long supported mediation and reconciliation activities in war-torn communities.

Faith-based groups have also frequently led the way in shaping international treaties and social movements to make the world safer. While far from the media headlines, Quakers, for example, have helped launch treaties banning landmines and other weapons of war, supported the development of protocols to outlaw child soldiers, and instigated action on conflict prevention, peace-building and human rights. While religious groups have adopted varying positions toward capital punishment, many of them are unified in their opposition to the use of torture, advocate for banning nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and support grassroots campaigns to promote human rights and reconciliation.

A Christians Role in the midst of pandemics.

The world that we took for granted just a few weeks ago has ceased to exist. Our country is a nation that has long been known for, and has celebrated, freedom of movement. We are a people on the move. We are in an almost constant state of interaction with others, be it in restaurants, bars, theaters, gymnasiums, stores, businesses, schools, or sporting events. Now, suddenly, that movement has ground to a halt. We have become a people in self-imposed house arrest. And as city, state, and federal governments are warning, if we do not voluntarily cease unnecessary social interaction, then the government is prepared to enforce our isolation. Our world has drastically changed. The only question is whether that change is short-term, long-term, or permanent.

In an almost unprecedented display of governmental authority, church attendance has been severely curtailed. Authorities have directed that all gatherings be limited to fewer than 10.  Church worship services have ceased altogether. The overwhelming majority of churches are cooperating with these directives. So, even within the church, virtual communities have become the only communities that we have.

How are Christians to respond to a world caught up in the midst of a pandemic?

The Church Fathers

You may be surprised to learn that we can find help in our search for answers from the early church fathers. For we are not the first generation of believers to face that question. In fact, less than 150 years after Christ’s resurrection a devastating pandemic swept across the Roman Empire, one of a series of plagues that killed millions.

The first great pandemic, referred to as the Plague of Galen, was during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. It began in 165 AD and lasted 15 years. The cause may have been the first appearance of smallpox in the Western world. So devastating was this pandemic that by the time it was over between a quarter and a third of the empire’s entire population had died. Aurelius wrote about the plague, describing caravans of carts and wagons hauling away the dead. Entire cities and villages were abandoned. The emperor himself joined the casualties when he died of the plague in Vienna in 180 AD.

Then from 250 to 262 another plague, the Plague of Cyprian, struck the empire. This time the culprit may have been measles. When striking a previously unexposed population, both measles and smallpox can be quite deadly. At its height 5,000 people a day died in the city of Rome alone.

Keep in mind that when these plagues first hit only a few generations had passed since Jesus walked the hills of Galilee. Christianity was still in its youthful, vigorous, formative, years. How did those early believers respond to the pandemics that they faced? What can we learn from their example? Their own writings offer testimony to what they believed and how they acted on those beliefs.

In his Easter letter in 260 AD Dionysius, the bishop of Alexandria, wrote a lengthy account of the efforts of local Christians to nurse plague victims, often at the cost of their own lives.

"Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life supremely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead. The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, a number of presbyters, deacons, and laymen winning high commendation so that death in this form, the result of great piety and strong faith, seems in every way the equal of martyrdom"

The heathen behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape.

Galen lived through the first epidemic during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. What did he do? He got out of Rome quickly, retiring to a country estate in Asia Minor until the danger receded.

He goes on to note that Galen’s response “was not seen as unusual or discreditable at the time. It was what any prudent person would have done, had they the means.”

What accounts for the dramatic difference in the pagan and Christian responses? I am reminded of what happened during the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. As thousands ran from the towers, firefighters and police ran towards them. Stark points to the contrasting belief systems of paganism and Christianity as the explanation:

This difference in pagan and Christian morality was noticed by the pagans, even by those who hated Christians. Tertullian claimed, “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”

Even more striking is the testimony of those pagan opponents themselves. Stark relates the account of the Roman Emperor Julian, a bitter opponent of the Christian movement:

Julian launched a campaign to institute pagan charities in an effort to match the Christians. Julian complained in a letter to the high priest of Galatia in 362 that the pagans needed to equal the virtues of Christians, for recent Christian growth was caused by their “moral character, even if pretended,” and by their “benevolence toward strangers and care for the graves of the dead.” In a letter to another priest, Julian wrote, “I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked by the priests, the impious Galileans observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence.” And he also wrote, “The impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well, everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.”

Lessons to be Learned

As we are confronted by the COVID-19 pandemic, what lessons can we learn from the example of these early Christians?

First, we should face this and every crisis that comes our way with courage. Fear has no place in the life of a believer. We affirm that God is in control. At times like this our actions either demonstrate the sincerity or the falsehood of those declarations. Our marriage vows include the phrase “in sickness or in health.” Our commitment to God demands no less.

By this I don’t discount completely the positive role that fear can play in our lives. If a rabid dog approaches your fear response to that threat can save your life. What I speak of is the kind of unreasoning, paralyzing, despair-provoking fear that robs us of all hope, peace, and confidence in a future.

Second, COVID-19 does not release us from our obligations as Christ followers. Our discipleship is not contingent upon circumstances. The Golden Rule was not suspended. That means that hording or fighting over that last roll of toilet paper at Walmart is not only socially unacceptable behavior, but also blatantly unchristian conduct that must have no part in us. Generosity continues to be an obligation.

Third, the Christian life is one of sacrifice. That goes double in times like these. Christ commands his followers to take up their crosses daily. We must be the ones who set the example for others. We may be called upon to sacrifice our comfort, our personal resources, our money, or maybe even our health and safety.

Fourth, with sacrifice comes an element of risk. We are promised eternal life. We are NOT promised an earthly life free of sickness, discomfort, or pain. Nor are we promised long life on this earth. In fact, sometimes to be obedient to Christ means risking our very lives.

So as we face this crisis together, we continue to pray. We continue to worship, if only in our homes or remotely via the internet. We do our best to model the kind of prudent actions that our medical authorities have urged us to take. We don’t engage in foolish risks. But protecting ourselves is not an ultimate good. So if you are qualified to donate blood, for instance, then for the sake of others you assume the small but real element of risk that donating blood entails. The coronavirus is not the only problem that people continue to face today, and those everyday needs must continue to be addressed. People still need their daily bread, and as Christians we may need to take extraordinary actions to help meet those needs.

In recent news there was an example of where a willingness to sacrifice and risk can lead the Christ follower: