WHY DOES MY TIME WITH JESUS FEEL EMPTY?

I wanted to sit at my desk to write this but it just isn’t going to work. After ankle surgery I can’t get comfortable with my foot up so I’m on my bed with this tablet on my lap. Life is full of adaptability.

Recently I realized something vitally important in my relationship with Jesus. I caught on to this nugget after a few days of feeling like my Jesus time hadn’t been satisfying, that even though I enjoyed him it didn’t feel like I had spent time with him. It began like this as I was talking with Jesus:

I’m not after experiences but I am after an emotional connection with you. I’m not going to just sit here and put in time just for the sake of being with you. I want to emotionally connect with you. Whether it’s pouring out my heart in love or getting insights or doing something together or hearing from you. Whatever it is, I want to feel it and experience being with you. Lately it has felt more of a head thing. Just being here but not connecting. They may look exactly the same but they’re not.

Maybe that’s what so many of us struggle with. I did for years, even to accusing Jesus of my feeling like I was dating a brick wall. We’re always looking for the experiences, the warm fuzzies, the electricity and the physical manifestations. Then we feel guilty and wonder if we’re just seeking experiences over Jesus himself. I’ve realized that we’re usually not seeking the experiences, we’re truly seeking Jesus, but what we want is an emotional connection with him.

The point of a relationship is to connect emotionally. Without it we might as well sit with a stranger. The question is – how do we get that emotional connection with Jesus every time we come to him?

For one, we tend to sit and wait for God to reach out, to do something, yet we ourselves must also put out some emotional effort. Yes, we often do feel like we’re reaching out. However, sitting quietly and making our mind blank as we focus on some vague feeling of God doesn’t often bring the connection we crave.

It takes both sides to make it happen. My sitting here trying not to think about the things I need to do, wondering what my mom is doing, or even analyzing what’s going on with Jesus and me is not going to create an emotional connection. I’m a deep thinker and sitting with Jesus can become nothing more than a sounding board for me to analyze and learn, but that’s not spending time with Jesus.

How can we get ourselves in a position for that emotional connection to happen? Here are some things I’ve learned about it.

We want physical manifestations but to experience Jesus is to do so spiritually. He is Spirit. Yes, there can be physical experiences but for the most part I’ve discovered the connection comes Spirit to spirit. One way to learn to walk spiritually with Jesus is to picture ourselves interacting with him. The question then is, how is that “in the Spirit” if it’s our imagination? Because it gives us a structure where we can begin to relate. It’s rare to instantly begin walking in perfectly developed spiritual senses, there’s a learning curve. Starting out by using a structure born out of our sanctified imagination isn’t as important as the fact that our interaction with Jesus is real. He will often change what we imagine to be spiritual. The more we practice being with him the more he’ll initiate changing our imagination to be spiritual realm life. Picturing us in a setting together gives us new and creative ways to interact. My current favorite places in the Kingdom are sitting on a cottage porch looking out over a large lake or sitting together in a small Bookshop.

We can focus on how amazing Jesus is and get our head in the game that way. I used that one in my time with him today. We sat in the Kingdom on the porch of the cottage overlooking the lake and I just focused on him. I told him:

I love seeing things and getting words and insight and learning but really, the bottom line is just – you. I don’t ever want to get distracted by the cool stuff and take my eyes off you. I do truly think that I could spend an awful lot of my time sitting with you and enjoying your presence. I don’t always have to be learning and doing and experiencing. I just look at you and my heart melts, my body relaxes, and the noises and voices in my head quiet. My heart settles down into a peaceful state of comfort and rest. I take a deep breath and just breathe in you – Jesus. It’s unbelievable.

I think the easiest way to get an emotional connection is through remembering the times we’ve already had with Jesus. Doing so gives us a dopamine high. Yet while that’s fun it can easily become a crutch and we have to be careful. While it will emotionally get our head in the Kingdom we can’t just settle on reliving good times.

We need to be ready to settle in and focus. I’m terrible at focusing and I have to work at it. I can say from experience that if your mind is jumping everywhere as you keep checking your phone for who is texting, or, “What on earth is that noise outside?”, or how long your to-do list is, you won’t be emotionally involved in your time with Jesus.Here’s an example of my struggle to focus.

I’m on a high from thinking about and reliving the things you’ve done, yet that’s not connecting with you, it’s just being happy and excited about new things and all the things I want to do. I want a connection with you. Heart to heart with my Beloved. I guess I get that connection using my spiritual senses because I really don’t use physical senses at all anymore with you. My emotional connection happens in the Kingdom, with my spirit and soul… That means I relax and quit focusing on my phone and all the things poking my brain to get my attention. Every thought looks like those voice balloons that are like explosions with sharp spikes all around them. I’m going to take a large net and gather all the spiky balloons together. I need a Thought Room to dump spiky thoughts in. 😁

We can work to get our mind, senses, and emotions ready. A bit before my time with Jesus I begin mentally preparing to relax, focus, and enjoy him. As I begin making my afternoon latte before sitting down with Jesus I’m already focusing on him, mentally and emotionally letting go of all the busyness running through my head. My niece Jenn tells me worship music gets her emotionally involved and ready to pursue time with him.

If we give Jesus half a chance he’ll respond. What can make it hard is when we want handwriting on the wall for the simple things before we’ll believe anything is really Jesus, or by the next day we’ve thrown it out as having made it all up. Emotional connections won’t come from that. One thing we can do is accept that what happens or what we hear is him and not constantly question everything. We need to just flow with what he says and does and trust that he’s responding.

Here’s a recent time I had with Jesus:

So what does getting emotionally involved look like for me? I don’t want to be sitting on the porch today. There are plenty of times I love doing so but on a dreary, dark day it’s cozier to be in the Bookshop. I feel emotionally into that setting, curled up here in a comfortable chair across from you. Probably most people would be cuddling beside you but you know me and that I like my own chair. 😁

I love the emotions that the shelves of books elicit from me. All the incredible Kingdom knowledge, the beauty, the stories, testimonies, and revelations… being here elicits emotions in me today… So I’ve now emotionally connected with being in this place and had some insight. Yet I haven’t emotionally connected with you. I’m definitely more in a receptive mode for that though. Now my heart is smiling looking at you… I could quit now because I’ve had my emotional moment but now that I’ve finally emotionally connected, why quit now? Never mind that it’s already 9:00 AM and I have things to do…

Yes, I do struggle with an emotional connection in my time with Jesus. I struggle with where to start. I would say I struggle to focus but that’s not being honest. I choose not to focus by looking at text messages and jumping up to do something. Yet when I focus, when I work on that emotional connection, I can get there.

I can find myself mentally saying the right words without emotionally connecting to them. “You are incredible and I love you so much. I love being with you. I don’t know how you can be so good to me.” And yet, while I mean them, they’re more out of my mind then out of my heart and emotion of the moment. As you become aware of creating an emotional connection with Jesus you’ll begin to notice whether you are operating out of your mind or out of your spirit.

Now that I realize that an emotional connection is important in my time with Jesus I can focus on making it happen and having a wonderful time with him. I’ve also learned to press in, don’t quit once you get there, that’s only the beginning. Being with Jesus is more than just the dopamine high of really connecting. Push past that and you’ll experience much more because now you’re ready to do things together, to enjoy him and hear what he’s saying.

I challenge you to work at creating an emotional connection with Jesus as you spend time with him. It’s not as hard as it might sound and it makes your time with him come alive.