Throughout most of my life, I didn’t take my faith very seriously. I was thankful for what Christ had done on the cross and accepted him as my Lord and Savior, but I never pursued him with all my heart, mind, and soul.

Improving our relationship with God does require us to go to church on Sundays, study the bible, and follow the Lord’s commandments. But often enough, I treated those things as if they were my chores. I did those things with lack of effort and a bad attitude, thus my results ended up minimal and lackluster.

My daily schedule generally consists of going to school, studying, hanging out with friends, writing lyrics/poems, eating, sleeping, watching anime, watching anime, watching anime (see, I’m really not that busy), and maybe, just maybe, if I have a little time to spare, I would give it over to God.

But even then, I find myself not putting in the energy or attention to be engaged in prayer and devotion for Christ, and I basically place him under my priority list, saying that he isn’t the most important thing in my life.

Usually when someone is deeply in love, they go out of their way to try and spend time with that special person, even if that means sacrificing plans or interests; the same thing applies here. If I truly love God, I would go lengths in order to honor him, to pursue and spend time with him.

“The Creation of Adam,” a painting by Michelangelo, depicts so well how our attitude toward God can be like. God is flying and reaching toward Adam in order to touch his finger, while Adam lays in a fairly relaxed position with his arm resting on his knee, barely trying to reach for God.

The painting resonates a lot about how I am toward God at times: Reluctant, lazy, mediocre, which is the total opposite of how God acts toward me.

Marty of Social Club Misfits says best on how we should act toward God: “At the end of the day, if you call yourself a Christian, be the best… God deserves our best. God gave us our best at our worst, so we give God our best."

I don’t want to give God the leftovers of my efforts; I want to give him my best. I want to give him the full-course meal.

Whether it’s the way we live, studying the word, or using our talents and gifts, we need to come forth with our best effort in honoring and pursuing God, because he did the same in pursuing us.

A passage to leave you off with:

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” – Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV).