Relationship vs. Doctrine

What is the distinction between having a relationship with God and simply focusing on the words of spiritual texts or a religious organization's doctrine of what God is to them? Huge distinction! 

A spiritual text shares the experience of others whereas a relationship offers you your own experience. See the difference? When  someone tells you about their amazing experience with a business leader or a church leader,  you may listen out of respect for your friendship or you may be moved to discover more.  The distinction between relationship and doctrine is listening to another's experience or having our own experience. What's real to us is our own experience because it touches the essence of God within us.

At the heart of our nature, we humans are narcissistic.  Our perspective of life is all about our survival. Until and unless we recognize that we have taken the difficult path to life instead of the easy route nothing changes - unless and until we discover there's a better way to survive the world and this life. Until then, we are tilling the soil of the world as an unending, relentless machine of life.

Once we have "experienced" God's Spirit, once God has touched our human spirit, our perspective changes and we are able to see life differently. It is then that we can begin to develop our relationship with God, Divine Love, Spirit, which makes amazing changes for us. Our perspective about what life is and how life works changes. Our perceptions change and we can see things differently. We literally transform our lives because of our relationship with Spirit.

Doctrine or spiritual texts do not change anything, because they are the experiences of others. The information is of intellect and can point us in directions that worked for others, but power of God is in our relationship with Him. The reality of God can only come to us through our development of a relationship with God.

Once I changed my perspective, I began to see life as a maze of possibilities and choices. With my free will, I choose. In choosing God's choices for me, life becomes easier and more productive in so many ways.

What about you? How is your relationship with God? Is it stagnant? Is it lively? Is it the focus of your life? Remember, we can always begin again - each day!