One of the things that shocks a lot of people is that the most common sort of root cause for divorce in the modern world is not cheating, it’s not abuse, it’s not money stuff, it’s not in-laws, it’s not addiction. It’s that so many married people eventually forget to talk to each other.
If you’ve ever heard an old couple say, “We’ve just run out of things to talk about,” you know what I mean. If we drift into autopilot, we basically become co-managers of a business rather than partners in a romance.
That is part of why ordinary time matters so much in any real relationship. And that exact same thing is true of our relationship with the Lord.
When you sit down and let the Lord love you day after day after day, what you’ll find is that it actually changes everything, the same way that spending time with the same person that you like a lot every single day really changes things for your relationship with them.
We’re not good at it, but one of the things that Elyse and I try to do every day is have a little bit of time just the two of us. A little bit of time without Seth. A little bit of time without Guinness, our dog. A little bit of time without either of our parents. A little bit of time without either of our friends. Just the two of us, just talking about something.
Sometimes we’re talking about some big serious thing that’s happening at work, or some big serious thing that’s happening at the church, or something one of us is worried about or excited about. Other times it’s thirty minutes of me telling her some stupid joke. Or it’s just showing each other memes that we found separately over the past few days. Other times we do this thing where I’ll start telling her a story and just make stuff up as the story is going along and try to make it as insane and stupid as I can. Sometimes we’ll look back through old text message conversations from when we first started dating and just reminisce.
And so sometimes the twenty, thirty, forty, whatever minutes that we have earmarked for each other is really nourishing. It’s really enjoyable. It’s really exciting.
Other times it’s just not.
Other times it’s just mundane. It’s just kind of boring. Some days we’re hanging out and she doesn’t really think anything that I say is funny. Some days we’re hanging out and I’m just not that interested in what her coworker did. Some days we’re hanging out and there’s just not that much of a spark.
But those days are not failures.
Those days are just as important as the days where everything feels great. Our relationship is still growing. On the days where there’s not some powerful spark, it’s just as meaningful, just as important. That is the lifeblood of any relationship. Whether it’s a marriage or a friendship or whatever, that is like the water that the roots of our relationships sink down into and then drink from.
And that exact same thing is true of our relationship with the Lord.
God’s word describes our spiritual life with Him as basically exactly the same as a normal relationship with any other person, just magnified to infinity because He is the infinite God.
Real relationships are not a hundred-yard dash that just kind of burns itself out really quickly and then you’ve got to move on to a different one or else you will die inside. Real relationships are a long cross-country jog.
And in this long cross-country jog, what happens is that love grows over time.
All love that actually endures and lasts is built by repeated contact. You do not see someone once, fall in love, never see them again, and have a really deep relationship with them. You just don’t. You maybe fantasize about them or something like that, but that’s just not the same thing.
Real love is built by deep familiarity. You see each other again and again and again and again, and your love grows deeper, not just more intense. It’s built by shared experiences. You go through things together. You experience life together. You become partners together.
Real love is built by commitment to each other. Committing to each other actually deepens your love. It does not extinguish it. There are people out there who are like, “Don’t get married. It just ruins everything.” Those people are idiots. Commitment does not kill the vibe. Commitment sweetens your relationship if you guys are actually both committed.
And love is built by the kind of trust that comes from consistency year after year with someone that you have genuinely committed yourself to, who has genuinely committed themselves to you, devoted themselves to you, that you’ve shared your life with. It builds trust.
And the same thing is happening each time you consciously go out of your way to spend time with your Father in heaven. Whether you feel it in the moment or not, He is actually doing work in you through that time you spend with Him.
I love the way Psalm 119 puts this:
“How I love your word! It is my meditation all day . . . I have kept my feet from every evil way, that I might observe your word. I have not turned away from your ordinances, for you have taught me. How sweet are your promises to my taste, more than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts, I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.” (Psalm 119:97, 101–105)
The term that the old-time theologians used for this is spiritual formation.
Spiritual formation basically deals with the fact that we become what we repeatedly do.
We become what we repeatedly do.
The metaphor the Psalms use is that our relationship with Him is a path that we walk. And the thing about walking is that it’s something you do continuously. It’s something you do repeatedly. It’s something you do one step at a time.
We are walking with the Lord.
And the sum total of our lives as Christians is that we walk with the Lord day and night, day and night, day and night. And as we are doing that, He is spiritually forming us. He is feeding our roots by the stream that is His Word.
That means something a whole lot of us need to hear: not every quiet time has to be dramatic in order to be meaningful. Not every day in the Lord’s presence has to feel electric in order to matter. The days where there’s not some powerful spark are not failures there either.
Those days are often the very days where He is doing some of His deepest work in you.
That is why spiritual formation can only happen through regular time with the Lord.
Not because every single day feels amazing. Not because every single day gives you some huge emotional swell. Not because every single day makes you feel like one of the Spiritual Elite.
It happens because real relationships grow through repeated contact. Real love grows over time. Real trust is built through consistency. And when you keep showing up before your Father in heaven, whether you feel it in the moment or not, He is actually doing work in you through that time.
So do not write off the mundane days.
Do not assume the quiet days are wasted.
Do not treat the days without a spark as failures.
Those ordinary days may be the very water your roots are drinking from.
Mount Zion Baptist Church - Louisburg, NC 
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