Hi ____________ . Some personal musings here. I wonder if you think your relationship with God is rubbish because you have been around to much super spirituality? What I mean is that when I hung around on fire Pentecostal Christians, attended there churches read the books etc; I felt the same way you did. I never felt Jesus was this real lover in my life (and still don't) I did not hear him whispering in my ear, I did not 'feel the presence of the Lord', or fall down slain in the spirit. But when it seemed everyone else did I naturally thought my relationship with Christ was a pretty big zero.

I remember being in Hamilton AOG, where every male was told to go down the front, and a woman breathed in the microphone and every single one of the 300 or so men and boys fell down in the spirit except me, I felt so terrible inside. They did it a second time and yes I faked it. But looking back I have to be honest in that at this time I do think that had little to do with spirituality and all to do with group dynamics, hype and psychosomatic behaviour.

When year after year you hear Christian's around you talk about what God has said to them, like they are just chatting on the phone, when you stand in church and people around you are just seem to be every week having out of body experiences you are going to get a very big complex about your relationship with God when it is not like that for you. Then because you want to change things you start reading the Christian self help books, and of course they are written by people who are having all these amazing out of body experiences, and god is chatting happily in there ear every day, so all it does is make you feel even more that you are not reaching the bar of faith.

Where I am at, at this moment, is that I find people who talk like that dubious, and I would trust your relationship with God as more authentic then some of the people you most probably hold up to being having it made with God.

I was privileged that when I first became a Minister I had a mentor called Ivor who was in his 80's (sadly passed away now). He had been a 'Spirit Filled Christian since before World War 2. He had sat in the back of today’s Pentecostal church (he was the head of that denomination many years before) horrified at what he was seeing and considered it bizarre and dangerous. This is a guy who was a Pentecostal before any one else I knew. He was a guy who sat in Mt Eden Prison for 6 years as a Conscientious objector because of his conviction about the Bible, yet he worried about the 'super spirituality' and 'easy faith' that was being displayed in the church and was coming out in books. He used to tell me that in the early days people would come and wrestle for years over things like speaking in tongues, prophecy, hearing God's voice etc. He said that what defined the early years of his ministry in the 1940's was that the people 'tarried' for that which they desired, today it is all instant.

tell this story because I think you are tarrying or wrestling with God, and I think my old mentor Ivor, would most probably be nodding in approval

Well that's my experience.
Sorry for the ramble.