relationship with God

[MarysLittleFlower]

I thought today how I can never know what another persons relationship with God is like. Do you think its unique for each person though we all know the same Jesus?

[BarbTherese]

My take .............Yes, I think each person's relationship with Jesus is quite unique.  He is eternally the same, we are continually changing probably for as long as we live.  Our changes can bring into our focus a different aspect of Jesus at different times and stages in our lives. 

[Spem in alium]

I believe each relationship with Jesus is unique, because we are all unique - unique souls, with unique stories and histories.   Yet, as Barb says, He never changes. From the very beginning, even before we existed, He loved us. He never stops loving us, or wanting to be with us. Perhaps the real differences in our relationships come in how we understand or choose to respond to this incredible love.

[NadaTeTurbe]

Yes, because we are all unique ! 

Imagine a XV century lady, who only have latin mass, who is discovering St Francis of Sales but is still very jansenist, who have no Bible in her home, who is in a marriage without love because of society, and imagine a XXI century young boy, who only have Novus Ordo mass, who is close to the charismatic movement, who is thinking about vocation, and his favorite author is St Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. 

It is the same Jesus. It is not the same relationship, because it is not the same gender, the same era, the same spirituality. Someone who can read the Bible daily and someone who can't will not have the same relationship. Someone who is influenced by jansenism and someone who is influenced by charismatic will not have the same relationship with Jesus. Someone who is discerning vocation and someone who is married will not have the same relationship with Jesus. Someone who have no SD and someone who have (let's dream !), St Francis of Sales as SD will not have the same ! 

BUT it doesn't mean that one of them is better. There is no "quality" or "quantity" when it comes to our relationship with Jesus. 

Here I want to quote Vincent Jordy, in the french book "l'art de la prière" (the art of prayer). "What we understand or think we understand, what we feel or think we feel, is limited in comparison with what God really does, usually, in silence and in an hidden way, in the depths of our soul. For exemple, the fact to not feel anything, not see anything, and not understand anything in your prayer doesn't mean that it is mediocre and that God is not here and effective." What Vincent Jordy means, is that we can't really know where we are in our relationship with Jesus. and I find this amazing ! It means that, even if I have no conscience of it, God is always moving things in my heart, taking me closing to Him ! Vincent Jordy also quotes St John of the Cross : "God leads every soul by its own way in such a way that it would be difficult to find own who, in its way of proceed, will be half in harmony with another soul"  [Dieu conduit chaque âme par sa voie propre, de façon qu'on en trouvera difficilement une qui, dans sa manière de procéder, s'accorde à moitié avec une autre.]