So now, yes, we’ve put our faith and trust in God. We want to know Him, we want to make Him our highest priority. What can we practically do to get to know Him? In our minds it might be like blind cats chasing after the light.

Emotions and Encounters

Some think knowing God is an emotional experience of feeling the presence and closeness of God. That’s not wrong. But is the extent of knowing God chills down your back when the worship band starts and we all lift up our hands?

Others think its special ‘coincidental’ God’s-hand-is-over-this encounters. For example, when you forgot your english homework that was due that day but it turns out you had left it in your mum’s handbag at the doctors appointment yesterday and she happened to be working at the school canteen that day and you happened to walk past you as you were stressing about how Mrs Read would definitely send you to the head of the english department, the teacher feared by all students, Mr Wright, for not bringing in your homework three weeks in a row, and out of nowhere your mum remembers about your homework, stops you, rummages around in her handbag, and pulls out a half-crumpled Shakespeare essay. “Thank you, God!” you say in relief.

Knowing God’s not Guesswork!

Here, there is a huge vacuum here in our generation. Most people give up at this point and conclude, well maybe I can’t really know God now. I can’t see Him or hear His audible voice. Maybe I’ll just get on with enjoying life and wait for heaven. But as I said in the last episode, we can know God because God has revealed Himself to us. Knowing God’s not guesswork!

God reveals Himself to us in two ways. First is His general revelation. God reveals Himself through His creation to every living person. Psalm 19:1 says,

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)

Whether you are Christian or not, when you gaze into the night galaxies or gape in awe at the gorgeous afternoon sunset, how can you say there is no Creator?

But that’s not it. God also gives His special revelation to all those who would trust in Him. He reveals Himself through Christ, who is the Word. We’ve got the Bible which is the grand narrative of God’s history to bring salvation to us, ultimately through Christ. Divinely inspired, we find in it Christ’s words, actions, heart, character, teachings, commands. Through the Word, we can get to know God on a personal level.

God has also given us the Holy Spirit, who is our helper to understand what Christ had said, who continues to testify about Christ through the written Word to us today (see John 16:7-8).

So we can know God

So we can know God! By general revelation, God’s revelation of Himself in creation, you can get to know God. So when you’re studying at school, whether its learning beautiful maths equations or the complexity of the human body or the vast creativity of the different kinds of rocks and minerals, seek to know God’s beauty and attention to detail and creativity.

But even more, we can know at a personal level only through His special revelation to us in His Word, by the help of the Holy Spirit. We can grow to know God by studying His Word. We can know Him if we want to take time to dig deep into His Word. The sad thing is, our generation doesn’t know how to read the Bible, and even if we do read it, we’re to puzzled to get what it says.

Here’s the thing we’ve got to realise. We’re not alone! We’re meant to learn God’s Word in community with each other so we can sharpen our understanding. It’s our Christian friends and our local church, but also the vast array of wiser Christians from the past. In our digital age, the resources around us are endless. There are books, articles, podcasts, sermon recordings, videos, all around us that can help us understand God’s Word.

If we want to trust Him that knowing Him is worth it and seek Him wholeheartedly, with humble hearts yearning to get to know our Lord, Creator and Saviour, God will open a way for us.