Knowing God, Part 4
Learning to Communicate with God
So far in the
Knowing God series, we have learned that to get to know God,
we need to learn about Him and we need to experience Him. To
do so, we need to learn to communicate with Him. We can only
do this by spending regular, quality time with Him, by
learning to listen as well as speak, and to learn to trust
Him. Now let's take a look at just how you can accomplish
all of this!
Learning about God: How can we learn about God? You learn
about God by getting into His Word, by hearing the testimony
of others, and by witnessing God at work, first-hand! I
cannot overemphasize the importance of reading God's Word,
my friends! By reading God's Word, we become familiar with
the different ways that God works. We learn how He made
Himself known to others, and we learn to trust in Him
through the experiences of others.
But though I do not wish to downplay the importance of
knowing about God in any way, I have to admit that knowing
about Him is not the same thing as knowing Him. So with a
solid basis of knowing about Him, we can begin to get to
know Him personally.
This is a very large topic, but I will simply highlight a
few things that I, personally, have found very helpful.
First of all, we need to pray without ceasing. Now I'm not
talking about the "give me" kind of prayer, or the "help me"
kind of prayer. I'm not even talking about the "get down on
your knees" kind of prayer. I'm talking about aligning your
thoughts -- all of them! -- to Him. I'm talking about
literally sharing every thought, feeling, and emotion with
God, ALL the time! And when you pray, you must always stop
and listen. When you ask God a question and open up your
heart to Him, He will answer! You just have to listen. In a
state of constant prayer, He speaks to us through His Holy
Spirit into our thoughts. It doesn't take long to learn to
recognize His voice!
Secondly, we need to recognize that God is always at work in
and around our lives. John 5:17-18: "Jesus said to them, 'My
Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too,
am working.'" If we recognize that He is always at work
around us, we can begin to watch for His hand in our lives.
Thirdly, we need to praise God for EVERYTHING! All that we
have is a gift of God. In fact, praise should make up a
major portion of the "continual prayer" I spoke of above.
Fourthly, recognize that you CAN trust Him with everything,
and with this realization, begin to give Him all of your
problems. Then sit back and watch how He takes care of them!
Finally, get into the habit of submitting ALL of your
choices to Him!
The more you commune with the Lord, the more you will
recognize His voice. Why not start today, my friends? Why
not make it your personal goal to really get to know God,
today?
Love in Christ,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart,
For anyone who is serious about getting to know God, I would recommend the workbook, "Experiencing God", by Henry Blackaby and Claude King. This is full of excellent, practical suggestions and exercises to get you started down the path of getting to know God personally.