Magic tricks or Good Relationship?

Sometimes I realize that I have believed in a sort of 'magic trick' relationship with God. If I say "In Jesus Name" at the end of every prayer then God will have to listen to me, or do what I say. That sort of thing. This created a lot of paranoia in my mind, because it added up to a belief that God can't be trusted to be good and have integrity - it was my job to keep him in line and make sure he did the right thing. And worse yet, it was up to me to repeatedly convince him to love me.

The Bible gives a better testimony. It's a big relief to learn that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was all his idea in the first place. All this love... he started it. I didn't talk him into it. I didn't come up with it. And he did it because he wanted to do it.

"You didn't choose me, I chose you," assures Jesus.

So I can stop worrying about whether I need to manipulate God. That's a needless effort for two reasons:

1. He's God, he can't be manipulated anyway.

2. He's good, so you don't need to... he always loves well.

There is freedom and peace in God's goodness and integrity and in the choice to love us so well in Jesus, a choice which was made long before I knew anything about it. It's reasonable to entrust ourselves to him wholly and let go of control and fear.

It's a simple point, but I have to re-learn it constantly.