Annie was in the middle of praying when a powerful and encouraging thought came to her (this often happens when she’s praying). The thought was that even though she wasn’t sure where she stood at that moment with someone that really mattered to her, she knew exactly where she stood with God.

By His grace, Annie and God were good.

In some of her other relationships, however, she’s getting mixed signals. Annie is trying to do her part as a friend, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. The complexities of life these days plus the trickiness of communicating mainly through social media have made her relationships a little more complicated than usual.

What Annie is experiencing is more common than she knows. Human nature being what it is, relationships can be a bit of a guessing game. As much as we would like for them to remain in a constant state of flourishing, they don’t. Rather, like geese, relationships tend to migrate along a spectrum of closeness…sometimes we’re going toward each other and other times we’re moving away toward opposite poles.

This can be hard on the heart. Rejection from another human being, especially someone with whom you were once close, is brutal.

But all is not lost. When other relationships are slipping, it can be a great comfort to know that your relationship with God has a permanence about it. There’s no guessing involved, only knowing. From the moment you placed faith in Jesus, your relationship with Him has been a constant. Not that there haven’t been ups and downs in your enthusiasm, faith, or dedication. God knows, all of us have bad days and plenty of them.

The durability of our relationship with God is not based on us, but on Him. It is because of His unwavering love that you can know your status as a child of God is absolutely 100% secure in Jesus (See Hebrews 7:23-25; 1 John 2:1-2). The bond in our relationship with God is never based on the strength of our Christian performance – be it our prayer lives, our giving, or how many people we influence for Jesus. Those things are all highly valued, but they are not the glue holding things together.

The security of our relationship with God is found only in the exquisite quality of His love. This is one of the points of Romans 8, where Paul helps us make sense of suffering. He assures that even though life can hurt sometimes, this doesn’t disprove God’s love for us:

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:28-29 (NLT)

Christian, you can rise every morning knowing that God has not budged in His commitment to you. That’s just who He is. People may come and go, but when God comes, He comes to stay.

So back to Annie, who isn’t sure where her relationship with (anonymous) stands today. Hopefully, with prayer and some hard work, the relationship will recover. In the meantime, Annie is relieved that at least she knows where she stands with God.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.