Ghosting

My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

Psalm 27:8 (NLT)

In case you’ve lived in a cave, and in a technological blackout, you may not have heard the term “ghosting” before. I know, each generation comes up with new words that mean something which never meant that before and now you must learn that the word you thought you knew the meaning to is no longer the correct meaning. I get it. But I digress. The term ghosting simply means to ignore someone. For example, your best friend sent you a text message asking if you wanted to hang out. You don’t reply. They send another message. Still no reply. Your friend would then respond with something like “Why are you ghosting me?” Get it?

But, ya know, ghosting isn’t a new thing. Ghosting doesn’t just apply to text messages or phone calls. In general, it applies to relationships; and it’s a huge negative. Can you imagine if your husband or wife decided to ghost you? How long would that relationship last? Never mind the fact that anxiety and worry would dominate your thoughts. What happened to them? Additionally, not spending time together would utterly gut the relationship. No communication. No feeling their presence. No pictures. Nothing.

The reality is that when we ghost someone, we’re showing just how little we care about them. Ignoring messages, ignoring quality time, says much more about us than about the other person. It demonstrates our selfishness, our busyness, and our ego. Essentially, we’re saying that the things in life happening in the moment are more important than the person we’re supposed to have a connection with.

Unfortunately, this can apply to our relationship with our Creator as well. When we choose to spend time in other adventures, even other people, but not spend time with Jesus, we’re effectively ghosting him. When we don’t spend time in his Word, or in prayer, we’re telling him we’ve got more important things to do. Let me ask: How strong is that relationship?

Instead, we need to adopt the philosophy of King David, as found in our verse today, “My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.””