THE DANGER OF “DISTANCE”
When we were done talking that day, he said to me, “Thank you for calling me sir. I have been feeling very far and I did not know what to do about it. This call has made a whole lot of difference.”
A relationship is serviced by communication. If you are not intentional with communicating, you will realise that intimacy begins to wane. If you do not become deliberate about prayer and study of the Word, your relationship with God will drop in quality.
I have had relationships that died a “natural death” because of the communication gap that was built. One of the things that begin to happen is that you realise that the longer it takes to reach out to such persons, the harder it becomes to reach out. Quality relationships can be lost to such patterns.
There are relationships you must never allow to wane- you must always give it your best. When the devil also wants to destroy a man, he ensures that he is far from voices that can hold him accountable and caution him in trouble.
The trouble of Samson did not begin with Delilah. Not at all! It began the day he started withholding important information from his parents. When he killed the lion, he said nothing. It was easier to go back to the same place to draw honey and lick it. It is always a “gradual” decline till it becomes a mess.
You are blessed when people who should hold you accountable still come into your space to encourage or warn you. There are times it can be an uncomfortable conversation. It can be about a pattern of behaviour that they have noticed. Take it humbly as great feedback. Work on it!
No matter how busy I am, there are relationships that I will never take for granted and there are places and meetings that are a must for me. Why? They are voices of rectitude. They are places of instruction. They are people that stir me to deeper things.
If there are calls you must make today, do not postpone it till tomorrow. I ran into a dear one once. She was in shock. I was excited to see her. She kept apologising about how distant she had been. I led her to Christ and discipled her as a young convert. Over time, there are patterns that I have seen that are not Christ-like. That is part of the strategy of distance. For some seeds to grow in your life, there are some people that the enemy will isolate you from.
I know another person that also stopped going to church for months. I just did not love the gradual slope I was seeing with her moral standard. I knew something was wrong. Distance is a devilish trap when your spiritual health is concerned. Maybe you should wake up! Make that call today. Build that relationship again today. It is already dying. Go and water it.
temilOluwa Ola, Eruwa.