We also go through different "seasons" in our relationship with God. Sometimes there's a very active "season" of talking to God continually about a problem. Usually this happens when we're very concerned about someone or about a certain situation. All day, all night, we think of God, mentally crying "Help! Please help!" We're thinking about how powerful God is, how loving. Surely God knows all about this person - or about us - and cares about what happens. And we know that nothing is impossible with God. "Oh God, I trust You! Please - answer this prayer and give us what we need!"
And maybe God does. Maybe we or another receive just what we thought was needed. Usually we remember to tell God "Thank You." Maybe we don't. But, often after a season of continued, intense, specific prayer to God, we can "slack off" in thinking about God and praying to God if we receive what we ask for.
What if the only times we talk to God intensely are the times when we want or need something, are asking for a favor, and then, once we receive what we want, we forget about God? Aren't we really treating God as our own personal Supernatural Santa? Once our personal Christmas of receiving the Gift we asked for is over, do we switch off our attention to God as easily as we switch off the lights on our Christmas tree? Do we mentally send Him back to His Heavenly North Pole, because His mission for us is over?
Our human relationships have seasons. Often Paul and I have seasons of intense interaction, when we chatter and work beside each other all day. Other times, there are seasons of rest. Yesterday I had a rest day; I spent it on the couch reading, cocooned in silence. Dinner for me was a bowl of cereal in our quiet living room while Paul ate his in the family room, enjoying the T.V. We talked a little, were glad of each other's presence, but didn't need to constantly interact to be connected to each other. Paul, thank God, understood that I needed rest.
In the same way, we can have quiet, restful seasons with God, in which we don't want or need anything from Him - but His Presence. God and you can live aware of each other's presence, be thankful for each other's presence, and you don't need to speak much - your quiet, mutual love, your mutual awareness of each other, your deep gratitude, are all that's needed. You can take time to meditate on Scripture. You can take time to pray in other ways. If you live truly "awake," you can quietly see God's Hand in everything, rejoice that God is always at work. You are attuned to God, as God is attuned to you. These quiet seasons happen often when our lives are peaceful. They are necessary to strengthen and deepen our relationship with God, just as quiet times strengthen our human relationships.
These quiet seasons balance the seasons of intense prayer, when our lives are so chaotic and distressing that we are begging God for help continually. If we've lived through quiet seasons with God, our trust is deepened to prepare us for these dark times, even times when we are so emotionally bereft that we can feel abandoned.
Because sometimes, after long periods of intense, agonized prayer, God does not give us what we ask for, what we think we need. God instead gives us what God knows that we - and the situation - need. If the only times we've spent with God have been times when we asked, asked, asked, we can feel that our Supernatural Santa has betrayed us. Our tenuous relationship with God collapses. We are angry, bitter. We walk away from Him.
When we walk totally away from God because we have not received the Gift we asked for, we do so because we've lived through only one kind of season with God: the season of asking. We have not lived through seasons of thankfulness, rejoicing, just being with in peacefulness. We have not lived constantly looking for and finding His Presence everywhere. We have not lived WITH God long enough or deeply enough to know and understand that GOD is the GIFT Whom we need continually and Whom we receive continually. All we have to do is ask. God is the Gift Who keeps on giving.
"Come apart and rest awhile." (Mark 6:31.)