Keep your contact with God
First of all I wane emphasize that the relationship between you and God is a living thing. It's not yours to own, but it's a gift from God for you to nurture for keeping it and for making it stronger. I'll explain how this actually works out and how it's a fact later, but first lets see how many christians actually nurture their relationship with our God and what it actually means. I beleive it means we're making the environment bearable for the Holy Spirit to stay inside us, it's a teqnicality which works like this; the Holy Spirit (which actually is God) don't "function" in an environment which contains all the earlier mentioned "barriers". So if you pray and make your contact, but later start for example lying or judging others this will happen; The Holy Spirit retract itselves from you and you need to reconnect once again. This doesn't happen because God wants it to happen, but because since God is God he cannot stay inside you while you're sinning.
In other words; it's actually you pushing the Holy Spirit out of yourself by sinning, not the other way aroung, but lets stay positive and focus on how to keep the contact instead of dwelling on why God have to retract himself from us because of our own bad behaviour. What happens to a relationship were one the parts constantly do wrong so the other part needs to retract? Well, it won't grow to be stronger, that's for sure.
There are many ways to keep your contact with God and I will make a list which you can check out and try for yourself. I Beleive there's a reason for christianity to become like a tree; many branches with different ways to adore and submit to our one (and same) God, and the reason is because we worship him in different ways. I wane lay it out the way I see this and excuse me if I get it the wrong way in your opinion. Here's a shortlist and a comprised summary of how some of the christian branches relate themselves to the same God:
The Catolics prefer to go to church for having their communion because they beleive 100% they get a part of God inside themselves, and they can back it up as a fact since God walked among us as a person and; he left behind traces of himselves on the earth. They use the tradition through all the years as a sign of God acting in human history. At the same time they have a combination of faith and actions through all the 7 sacraments which sums up as a combination whom give them a solid way to keep the contact with God.
The Lutherans are all about the faith and less "actions" when you compare them to catholics, but even that is kind of simplyfied version of the truth since the faith is summed up in Jesus' 2 commandments; which is all about showing compassion to other people.
So when you think of it Lutheranism is also about "actions" if they live the christianity like I beleive we're supposse to do (more to come on that topic later).The Pentakostal church have one priority; get the Holy Spirit inside you and keep it there, a way of thinking which I totally adore. Just make sure the Holy Spirit (you get inside you) agree with the gospel and you're good to go (more to come on that topic as well).
The Orthodox church follow an "old school" methodology and I absolutely love it! They stand while having mass and use incence for the resembling of sacrifice and prayer ascending to heaven. In other words; they are intense and spiritually active while having mass.
The mentioned are only very few examples of how different we may be in our christianity, but I wane focus on what we have in common;
Jesus Christ is our saviour and representation of God. The gospel is what we have in commen; when God took a step down from heaven to give us the foretold consept of salvation. The consept is the same, but the way we find God and the way we keep the contact with him is different.
I just wanted to point out there are many ways to keep the contact with God, but let's say you don't have a church nearby or even a solid reason for not going to one. Then I would recommend to make the methodology you did for finding God into a habit in your weekly rutine. Personally I have tried all of this and I find the fasting/prayer methodology as the safest way for keeping the contact with God, and I do this routine every week together with my spouse. It's makes us stronger as a couple and we experience growing in faith and the understanding of God.
If you made your contact with God I would recommend 4 tasks for you so you may keep this contact:
Continue the fasting/prayer activity once a week or make a sycluce for once per every 14 days.
Try to see your former life through God's perspective.
It migth be fun and you'll understand more and at least you will have several proof of how this consept works. If you read some of my personal stories you'll see how I rewinded my life many times. I saw myself beeing punished and corrected in different situations and I know I really deserved it. This is interesting and works as a part of a personal learning prosess, at least it did for me, and still does since I keep doing it, which brings us to "part two" of these tasks.See how God works in your life at present time.
It's a great feeling to be able to follow God's rules, it makes you wiser in a good way. Just remember to keep yourself from believing you're superior to others because you have changed, it's a dangerous trap for all of us. Your perception of God's existence and how he works is actually a gift that no one shall take for granted. We know we're not suppose to put our Lord to any tests, he knows what you're thinking so it won't work either, but it's quite interesting to see every actions through God's eyes like this:
Why situations happen because one have prayed for it and later received it because you deserve it.
How some people (even ourselves) are corrected by Gods consept because of wrong or even foolish behavior.
Sometimes you don't get what you have prayed for immediately so remember to be patient, you might get it a bit later or maybe God has something else in mind for you. Remember; God knows what's best for you.
Enjoy every step and look back at your "old-you" so it's easier to appreciate and beeing thankful for your own change.
If you start seeing the world and certain situations through God's eyes you will understand how he works. Just remember not to be judgemental because of your understanding. It's actually sad how other people don't know the truth so instead of judging them for not knowing we need to spread God's word and that won't happen through judging. The best way of spreading God's word is by positive behavior (a topic for later).
"Lectio divina" - works like a "dialog" with you and God
If you like to expand your faith and relationship with God I recommend evolving your type of prayer to what's called "Lectio divina" (divine reading). It combines reading biblical texts and meditation and works as having a "conversation" with God.
This is amazing and works out like this:
You read a (short) chapter totally three times and after each time you answer a question.
1. After the first time you read you answer this question:
"Are there one word that stands out to you in the text? Which one? This word is for you to meditate on and think of it thoroughly."
2. Then you read the chapter for the second time and ask yourself;
"Are there a situation in your life which this topic is reflecting, how does it make you feel while thinking about this situastion?"
3. The third time you read the text you should ask yourself;
"what does God want from me according to this? Is this an invitation from God? What's God trying to tell me? And last, but not least; "What is my answer? How do I respong to Gods invitation?"
I would recommend for you to read the chapters in Proverbs for starters, one by one of course and the short ones are best for starters. The more advanced you get the longer chapters your may read, but remember this is not about quantity, it's about the quality and the answer you get from God.
Learning about God through books and other sources
If you wane try to understand more about God and what he wants with your relationship, I would recommend to read about God and develop your understanding that way and make sure you use solid sources. If you try to read and understand the content in the bible without commentaries either inside the bible itselves or side material you will find it difficult to understand everything. Because when you translate text from it's original language to a different language some of the meaning gets changed, I found this out the hard way.
There are many ways to learn about God, but there's a huge different to understand God, the gospel and theology in our minds compared to the understanding which takes place in our hearts when we live in a genuine relationship with God. That what I like to call "live the christianity".
Academics versus Genuin believe
This is of huge importance and I wish every human beeing read this because when I found out this remarkable fact I was a bit shocked. Shocked because the understanding of Gods presence and the genuin beleive is of huge differanse. The genuin beleif is something I wane explain as a teqnicality were God (in his spirit) take place in humans and start the changing of the human personality literally (it's a teqnicality and a fact) and this is what Paul explains in letters to the Galatians (there's only one valid gospel) and were he explain in details in the first letter to the Korinter how "charisma" stands out as the justification gift nr 1.
At the same time I need to highlight this fact beeing all backed up with the historical understanding we see in "Acts of the Apostles";
In Acts we see alot of historically proofs at the same time as we see how Gods Spirit is poured out to humans for the first time. In Acts we actually see how the link between Humans and God become available for the first time in history, and this is the actual salvation whom everybody awaits (for this lifetime).
To understand this the academic way is easy while reading, listening to professors and even work yourself through asignments, but to make this happen to yourselves there only one way; see yourself as you are, go through the genuine selfreflection and "repent", "show remorse", "turn your ways" or whatever you wane call it. Even if you grew up as a christian you need to go through this part, there no way around.
Why?
Because we're all affected by this "decease" or even worse; "defect" separating us from what the situation we wore suppose to be in; a good relationship with God. You might be the smartest professor in theology or even a dedicated priest doing all good things for the local community, it doesn't matter at all! You still need to go through this activity if you wane get the Holy Spirit inside you and start beleiving with your heart instead of beleiving with your mind. Thats why I would recommend everyone to go through the methodology and why I see it as a fast track to a genuine faith in God.
In the next page you can read about how and why the Holy Spirit in fact need the methodology for beeing able to function by taking place inside you.