A while back, I had a conversation with a lady I met in Puerto Rico. She asked me what the tattoo on the back of my leg said. I told her “love is a waste of time unless it’s unconditional.” She said something along the lines of “well that doesn’t make sense, love is conditional. If your boyfriend cheats on you, you’re going to leave him right? That’s a condition.” This gave me pause because obviously she wasn’t wrong.

However, the love that my tattoo was inspired by wasn’t exactly romantic (though I got the tattoo after a breakup). The love I was thinking of was the love stated in 1 Corinthians 11:4-7 which ironically the KJV reads as “charity” rather than “love”. Love is a charity, freely given. It is stated all throughout the Bible how much God loves us. He gives His love to us freely and often. But to love someone and to be in relationship with them are two separate things. What the woman I met in Puerto Rico stated was in line with relationship, not love itself. Every relationship must have its contingencies and boundaries in order to be successful and healthy. To be in relationship with God is to respect His boundaries and understand His contingencies.

This relationship is the most beneficial relationship you could ever be in so it makes complete sense that it would come with a set of boundaries and contingencies to go along with all of the privileges. A career comes with company guidelines and a code of conduct as well as benefits such as 401k, healthcare, bonuses and incentives (if it’s a good one). Your family is supposed to protect, honor, support, and be loyal to you and you are expected to reciprocate. Your significant other should love and cherish you and you should meet their needs as well. All of these things have similarities with how God desires to be in relationship with us, after all we are made in His image.

The first thing you wanna do is get to know Him, go on a few dates if you will. Read up on the attributes of God. Start with the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Get to know Him as a person.. Seek His face and allow Him to show Himself to you personally.

When you have gotten to know Him, you can say with pure confidence He is a good God. With the knowledge and understanding of how good He is, you can receive His commandments (or boundaries and contingencies) in full faith that every Word is for our good (Romans 8:28).

I strongly recommend and encourage you to seek relationship with God before you seek relationship with anyone else because to seek anything outside of or before you seek God is to leave room for sorrow, to leave room for the devil to work in your life (Matthew 6:33). Understand that what God has for you is exceedingly, abundantly MORE than what you can imagine in your own mind even in your wildest dreams, He can offer more and actually takes joy in it. He is the author of that which is GOOD. A relationship with Him is the safest, surest relationship to have.