In the Christianity of my upbringing, whether at church events or summer programs or youth group gatherings, there was one chunk of jargon I could always rely on hearing: “personal relationship with God.” For us, our faith wasn’t just about reading the Bible or attending church or serving in the community; you needed a relationship with God. There had to be a personal dimension to faith— regarding God like a parent or friend or significant other. And yeah, you can build a biblical case for a relationship with God looking like each of those (although the last one still creeps me out), but there was another unsettling trend I noticed that went hand-in-hand with this one:

We were expected to have a personal relationship with God,
but we weren’t supposed to question God
or feel disappointed with God
or get mad at God.

The love we felt for God seemed to be very one-dimensional: either happily praising God or castigating ourselves for not loving God more. And the more I think about this relationship in adulthood, the more I realize no healthy relationship looks this way.

A healthy relationship involves balance, compromise, give and take.
A healthy relationship will have arguments and even fights.
A healthy relationship involves some occasional distance from each other—
not out of animosity, but as a boundary to ensure mutual health.

In a healthy relationship, you can express the full range of emotions you feel, not just the feigned chipper of Sunday morning. So if we’re going to keep talking about relationship with God (and I do think there’s a nugget of truth buried deep in the phrase), we need to make sure it’s a healthy relationship where we can cry with God, yell at God, or even admit to God, “I can’t think of anything to say to you today.” I guess what I’m saying is:

If your litmus test for faith is relationship with God,
make sure it’s a real, healthy relationship.