What Is Your Relationship with God Like?

I want to share an easy indicator of your relationship with God.

This indicator has nothing to do with how much you read your Bible or how often you go to church. It’s not about the verses you have memorized, how long you prayed today, whether you go on mission trips, or work with the homeless.

These can all be helpful, but it’s not the indicator I want you to think about.

The indicator I want to emphasize is how you handle relational drama.

Our lives are filled with drama. From the teen that fights with his parents about curfew, to the gossip at work about why she got the promotion instead of me, to an icy atmosphere around the dinner table after one spouse snaps at another – we all have drama.

What we do with that drama gives a clear indication of what your relationship with God is like.

What is the response to drama in your life saying about your relationship with God? God wants to help you answer this question, and he inspired a specific passage of Scripture to help you do it in James 3:13-17.

Let’s bring our relational drama to God and listen to what he says to us about it.

Drama Is a Fact Check

As we get closer to the 2024 Presidential Election, fact checks are everywhere. During live debates, many networks will fact-check candidates to determine whether they are telling the truth in real time. Everyone wants to know whether what they are saying is what is true in real life.

James says that relational drama is a fact check to the maturity of our faith. He says that anyone who thinks he is wise must demonstrate it with his life, “By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13).

 Your maturity is shown by how you handle the drama in your life. What do you do when someone ghosts you in communication? Do you trash someone’s reputation when you find out they said something bad about you? Do you exclude people you find annoying? Do you run in fear anytime there is confrontation? Do you forgive?

Your conduct – what you do – is a fact check of your faith. The reason for this is that what you do is a result of what’s going on inside of you (Proverbs 4:23; Matthew 15:19-20).

Drama Is a Thermometer

Drama, like a thermometer with a fever, often demonstrates that something is wrong on the inside.

James points at all the drama in our relationships and roots them in corrupt and distorted desires. He gives one of the most succinct descriptions of drama and its cause:

“For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16).

James calls drama “disorder and every vile practice,” but that’s just the thermometer showing the fever. Underneath it all is the deeper problem of jealousy and selfish ambition.  Jealousy is when I think that what you have should be mine, and I resent you for it. Selfish ambition is when jealousy starts motivating my actions.

Drama reveals this spiritual sickness in a variety of ways.

Some people are creators of drama. These are the ones who purvey the gossip, the slander, the accusations. They say the harsh word, or the snide and sarcastic remark that creates the relational rift. They tear others down with their words.

Some people are consumers of drama. Although you don’t actively stir the pot of drama, you eagerly consume it when you are around it. You listen to the gossip, you laugh at the demeaning joke, you buy what the creators of gossip are selling.

Some people are casualties of drama. Perhaps you have been hurt by drama. You have lost friends, and your name has been dragged through the mud. You are the victim. And yet, the seeds of future drama are taking root even now as you cultivate a bitter heart toward the creators and consumers of the drama that hurt you.

Relational drama is rooted in a deep, dangerous, and demonic sickness (James 3:15).

We need a cure.

Drama Is a Sign and Opportunity

Fevers are miserable, but they are also a blessing. That is because they are a sign that something is wrong and a cure is required. Relational drama functions in the same way. It is a sign that we need a cure that we do not have within ourselves. James describes this cure for us. We need wisdom from above.

James tells us that this wisdom is marked, first, by purity (James 3:17). Now, this seems to just exasperate our problem, doesn’t it? Our drama proves that our hearts are not pure! How could that change?

It must start with God himself.

Our fundamental problem is that jealousy and selfish ambition stain our hearts. But God has provided a way for those stains to be cleansed through the blood of Jesus Christ (1 John 1:9). God promises that if we confess our sins, we will be forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness. Then, and only then, can we be pure in the heart and have peace with God.

That purity and peace results in an enormous opportunity for followers of Christ. We now have the opportunity to handle drama in a way that practically demonstrates the grace of God in Christ.

It leads us to be “peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17). And then, something miraculous happens, “…a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18).

The opportunity is to be like God as we are people of peace and make peace where there is drama.

I am convinced that one of the most distinct ways that Christians can glorify Christ and his gospel is to have relationships with one another that are not marked by worldly drama, but rather the love and forgiveness and grace that comes only through Christ.

We have an enormous opportunity to do this very thing as we handle relational drama together.

The Story We Are Telling

The way we handle drama is telling a story about your relationship with God. What story is it telling? Do the fact check. Take the temperature. Notice the sign. Recognize the opportunity in front of you.

We have an opportunity to tell the incredible story of grace that we have experienced in Christ – the story of God himself stepping into our drama and bringing peace to those who were at war with him (Romans 5:10).  Let’s be faithful to share that story in the way we handle our drama.

After all, it’s the only story worth telling.