Relationships create and support almost every aspect of my life. I spend my free time with my friends because those people have taken the time to know and understand me. Living with my family had built secure and strong relationships with the people I trust most. A stream of my faith in Jesus and my belief in His teachings runs through every relationship I have. Jesus ties my whole world together with His love and care. As a church-goer since before I emerged from my mother’s womb, I grew up in a culture that stresses having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, however difficult fostering such a relationship may be.


I decided to entrust the saving of my life to Jesus at the age of four. I sat behind a couch and asked Jesus to come into my heart and take me to Heaven to be with Him when I die. At times, I have explained this action as one that could not have had substance and authenticity. After all, children do not seem ready to hand their lives to a person of whom they seem to lack understanding and knowledge. And yet, Jesus names children as the example of faith in the gospel of Mark:

“One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it’” (Mark 10:13-16 NLT).

The belief of a child does not ask questions. Children do not seek to disprove ideas and thoughts simply because they seem a bit wonderful and lovely; they embrace lovely things because they know that something as beautiful and encompassing as true love does not merit questioning. I have grown to believe that my acceptance of Jesus came out of simple, unadulterated, guileless faith in something that, especially as a child, I understood in its purest form.

I grew up in the baby nursery at Calvary Baptist Church. Then I graduated to Primary Church. I sang in King’s Kids, the children’s choir. My father, an Elder of the church, and my mother, person-in-charge of the Pioneer Clubs ministry, raised me on Jesus and vegetables. Loving God and following the Bible has always shaped my life. Therefore, listening to the stories of others completely flipping their lives upside down for Jesus has, at times, made me slightly jealous of their journey. I want to know what it feels like to stubbornly resist Love and suddenly realize I need it. I would like to experience the mentoring and guiding from another and then feel the gratitude toward them for helping me reveal the God I am built to worship. Then I think about my life and the other parts of it, the parts that do not resemble a cookie cutter quite as closely. I firmly believe that God gave me the situation and upbringing I have because I am meant to be the mentor, the seed-planter, or the friend. I know not only that Jesus craves for all of us to passionately love and serve Him by introducing others to Him, but also that He makes us all distinct and with distinct purposes. Because of this, God means for me to take my childhood and embrace it in order to show the people around me a little bit of what Jesus looks like.

I do not know if I can summarize my relationship with Jesus succinctly. It is always shifting from one place to another in my mind and actions, rising or falling on my list of priorities, and losing or gaining attention in my life. I think the actions of seagulls on the beach can adequately describe my relationship with Jesus most of the time. Seagulls constantly circle beachgoers looking for leftover or forgotten food. They steal food that no longer looks appetizing; they settle for someone else’s leftovers. Seagulls take whatever they can from the people around them because readily available tidbits of sustenance hold more appeal than the work it would take to catch a fish. Despite the fact that an entire ocean full of nourishing, wholesome food waits only a few feet away, seagulls ignore the bountiful source of food for the easy-to-grab, coarse meals of the beach. I am the seagull. I constantly look for easy-to-consume and easy-to-forget pieces of this world instead of longing for and searching for the juicy, fresh morsels of God’s kingdom that I could have, if only I did a little work.

Another way to describe my relationship with Jesus Christ comes from the Book of Hosea. God speaks through Hosea to say “’A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God’” (Hosea 4:12 NIV). The opposite of following Jesus and having a relationship is not rejecting any belief in Him; the opposite is following something else and putting another person or object before God. I commit adultery against Jesus all the time. I put my family and friends before Him. My schoolwork and pleasure reading take precedence over reading the Bible and praying every day. Wishing to change my life and the way I treat Jesus will never actually fix it. I hope all the time that something will change; something will suddenly click in my mind. Relationships do not have anything to do with things, though. Relationships involve people and their emotions for and actions toward one another. So the thing that must change is not a thing at all; it is a person: me. Fortunately, I, unlike the seagulls, know what waits for me in the ocean.

Ways do exist with which to strengthen my relationship with Jesus. By attempting to make every single thing I do an expression of Jesus or an act of building my relationship with Jesus Christ, my connection to Him can expand to include all parts of my heart and life, as a proper relationship should. Jesus calls His believers to surrender their lives and hearts to Him, and I have this burning desire to do so. I just need to remember what Jesus wants from me and what I want to give Him all the time. Prayer and study of scripture also strengthens a relationship. The more one knows about someone, the closer of a relationship the two can share.

I continue to work at my relationship with Jesus, even as I write this. I will never finish the work that I started at the age of four. My desire to continually remember Jesus and include Him in every aspect of my life drives me to analyze, to reform, and to submit the parts of me that need changes to the only One who irreversibly purifies and cleanses that which requires such aid.