Personal God Relationship

How does a personal God relationship differ from the one we have?

What Is Going to Be Different About a Personal Relationship with God?

If connection with God is where authentic life begins, then we have to ask a very practical question: What is actually going to be different about my life if I begin developing a personal relationship with God?

That is a fair question.

After all, most of us have already had some kind of relationship with God. We may have gone to church, said our prayers, participated in religious activities, or simply believed that God exists. So what makes a personal relationship with God different?

I think we have to begin with an honest recognition: whatever we have been doing up to this point hasn't completely satisfied us.

If it had, we probably wouldn't still be searching.

Somewhere deep inside, most of us know there has to be more to life than what we have experienced so far. We may not always know exactly what that "more" is, and we may not even know how to describe it. But we sense it.

There is a longing within us for something deeper. We want our lives to mean something. We want to love and be loved. We want to feel accepted for who we really are. We want to experience joy that isn't dependent on everything going our way. We want some sense of peace in the middle of all the uncertainty that life inevitably brings.

And perhaps most importantly, we want to know that our lives are connected to something greater than ourselves.

The interesting thing is that we can spend a lifetime trying to satisfy that longing on our own.

We can pursue success. We can accumulate possessions. We can seek recognition. We can develop our minds, build careers, cultivate relationships, travel, entertain ourselves, and fill our calendars with things to do. None of those things are necessarily bad. In fact, many of them can be very good.

But eventually we discover something.

None of them is quite enough.

There always seems to be another level of longing underneath the one we have just satisfied.

And I believe there is a reason for that.

The longing itself doesn't originate with us. It is something that is within us, but not of us. It points beyond ourselves.

That may be one of the reasons our search for God can feel so strange. We are looking for something we cannot create, control, or completely understand. We are trying to respond to a longing that God has already placed within us.

In a very real sense, we are looking for what God is already looking for in us.

God wants us to experience the life we were created to live.

And what does that life look like?

I believe it is a life shaped by love, acceptance, meaning, fulfillment, joy, and peace.

Notice that I didn't say a life without problems.

A personal relationship with God doesn't mean that everything suddenly becomes easy. We will still experience disappointment, loss, uncertainty, conflict, illness, aging, and all the other realities that are part of being human.

What changes is not necessarily what happens to us, but how we experience what happens to us.

That is an important distinction.

When we begin to experience God as a personal presence rather than simply an idea we believe in, something begins to change inside us. We begin to discover that we don't have to face life entirely on our own.

We can begin to bring our fears, questions, disappointments, hopes, and joys into the relationship.

We can learn to become aware of God's presence in the ordinary moments of our lives—not just in church or during prayer, but while driving down the road, sitting quietly with a cup of coffee, talking with a friend, watching a sunset, dealing with a difficult situation, or simply lying awake at night wondering what tomorrow will bring.

And gradually, the relationship begins to affect the way we see everything else.

We may become a little less afraid.

A little more accepting.

A little more compassionate.

A little more willing to forgive.

A little less concerned with proving ourselves.

A little more capable of experiencing joy.

And perhaps, over time, a little more at peace with simply being who we are.

That is what makes a personal relationship with God different.

It isn't primarily about becoming more religious.

It isn't about memorizing more information about God.

It isn't about becoming perfect or finally getting our spiritual lives "right."

It is about connection.

It is about moving from simply knowing about God to beginning to know God.

And that kind of knowing is not merely intellectual. It is relational. It develops over time, just like any other meaningful relationship.

We spend time together.

We become more aware of one another.

We learn to listen.

We begin to recognize the ways we communicate.

We become comfortable with silence.

We share our lives.

And eventually, the relationship becomes part of who we are.

That, I think, is what we are really talking about when we talk about authentic life.

We aren't trying to escape the life we have been given. We are learning how to experience that life differently because we are no longer experiencing it alone.

And perhaps that is the greatest difference of all.

A personal relationship with God doesn't necessarily give us a different life.

It gives us a different way of living the life we already have.

And that may be where authentic life truly begins.

What Changes for Us?

So, if we begin developing this kind of personal relationship with God, what actually does change for us?

That brings us to a rather interesting statement Jesus makes to his friends in the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John – Chapter 14, Verse 14

“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

At first glance, that sounds almost too good to be true.

Does Jesus really mean that we can ask for anything we want and God will give it to us?

A new house?

A new Mercedes?

Winning the lottery?

A better job?

More money?

A longer, easier, more comfortable life?

If we take the statement that way, we quickly run into a problem. It seems to turn our relationship with God into some kind of spiritual vending machine. Put in the right prayer, push the right button, and get what we want.

That is NOT what Jesus was talking about.

Without getting too deeply into the difficulties of translating an ancient Greek text into modern English, I think there is a much deeper meaning here. When Jesus says to ask "in my name," the point isn't simply that we attach Jesus' name to the end of our prayers.

It means asking in a way that is consistent with who Jesus is and what Jesus represents—a life completely immersed in God's unconditional and unending love.

In other words, we might paraphrase the passage this way:

Ask for anything that is consistent with God's unconditional and unending love, and it will be yours.

Now that changes the whole conversation.

Would winning the lottery be consistent with God's love?

Maybe.

Would having a new Mercedes be consistent with God's love?

Maybe.

Would having a bigger house or more money be consistent with God's love?

Maybe.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things.

The more important question is what those things mean in our lives and what we do with them.

Are they simply things we want because we want more for ourselves?

Or would they become part of a life increasingly shaped by love—for God, for ourselves, for other people, and for the whole creation?

That's a very different question.

Think about it this way.

If winning the lottery would simply make us more self-centered, more concerned about accumulating possessions, more detached from the needs of other people, and less concerned about the world around us, would that really be the fulfillment we are looking for?

Or would we simply have more of what we already had?

More money.

More things.

More opportunities to satisfy ourselves.

But not necessarily more life.

And this gets us to something I think is extremely important about developing a personal relationship with God.

We may not even know what we really want until we begin experiencing God's love.

That's a pretty big idea.

We often think we know exactly what will make us happy. We make lists. We set goals. We imagine what life would be like if we just had this thing or that thing. And sometimes we get what we wanted only to discover that the satisfaction doesn't last very long.

Why?

Because we were trying to satisfy a deeper longing with something that could never completely satisfy it.

A personal relationship with God begins to change that.

As we become more immersed in God's unconditional love, our understanding of what we really want can begin to change.

We may still want the new car.

We may still want the bigger house.

We may still want financial security.

We may still want success.

But those things can begin to take their proper place in our lives rather than becoming the things we believe will finally make us whole.

And something else can begin to happen.

We may discover that what we really want isn't simply more things.

Maybe we want deeper relationships.

Maybe we want to become more loving.

Maybe we want to forgive someone we've been carrying resentment toward for years.

Maybe we want to make a difference in someone else's life.

Maybe we want to spend more time with the people we love.

Maybe we want to use what we have to make the world a little better.

Maybe we want to experience the peace that comes from knowing that we are loved and accepted exactly as we are.

Those desires are very different from the ones we might have started with.

And that, I think, is one of the most significant changes a personal relationship with God can bring about.

God doesn't simply change what we have. God begins to change what we want.

And perhaps that is far more important.

Because once we begin to experience the power and presence of God's unconditional love, we can begin to see ourselves, other people, and the world around us differently.

We begin to understand that authentic life isn't primarily about getting everything we want.

It is about discovering what is actually worth wanting.

That is one of the great gifts of a real relationship with God.

God doesn't become the means by which we get everything on our wish list.

Instead, the relationship gradually transforms the person making the wish.

And as we are transformed by love, our desires can become transformed as well.

We begin wanting what brings life rather than simply what brings satisfaction.

We begin wanting connection rather than control.

We begin wanting meaning rather than merely success.

We begin wanting love rather than simply approval.

And eventually, we may discover that what we thought we needed to make us happy was never really what we were looking for in the first place.

What we were looking for was God's love.

And that may be the most important thing a personal relationship with God gives us—not everything we think we want, but the ability to finally discover what will actually bring us life.

We Can't Have It Both Ways

Before we go any further, I want to make something very clear.

When I talked about self-focused desires in the last section, I wasn't saying that those desires are necessarily bad.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wealth.

There is nothing inherently wrong with power.

There is nothing inherently wrong with recognition or fame.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having a beautiful home, a nice car, financial security, or pretty much anything else we can imagine.

Those things are morally neutral in and of themselves.

The important question is what we do with them.

What motivates us to want them?

How do they affect us?

How do they affect our relationships with other people?

How do they affect our relationship with God?

And perhaps most importantly, how do we use them once we have them?

Money can be used selfishly, or it can be used to help people.

Power can be used to control others, or it can be used to serve them.

Recognition can feed our ego, or it can give us a platform from which we can do something meaningful.

Even fame can be used for good or for harm.

So the issue isn't necessarily what we have.

The issue is what having it does to us and what we do with it.

There is a wonderful illustration of this in the movie Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey.

In the movie, Bruce is given the opportunity to essentially "play God." God gives Bruce extraordinary power. Bruce can do almost anything he wants, and for a while, it seems like the greatest gift anyone could possibly receive.

He also gets the responsibility of answering the prayers of people all over the world.

At first, Bruce thinks this is going to be easy.

People ask for things, and he can simply give them what they want.

So when thousands of people pray to win the lottery, Bruce decides to answer "yes" to everyone.

That sounds generous enough, doesn't it?

But then he discovers the problem.

If everyone wins the lottery, nobody really wins. The prize has to be divided among so many people that the whole thing becomes almost meaningless. And before long, the consequences begin spreading into the larger economy.

Then Bruce starts answering other prayers.

He tries to make everyone happy.

He tries to fix everything.

He tries to give people what they think they want.

And instead of creating a better world, he begins creating chaos.

The more Bruce tries to control everything, the worse things become.

And something else happens that is perhaps even more important.

The power begins to change Bruce himself.

He becomes fascinated with his own importance. He becomes increasingly focused on what he can do and what he can control. And as he becomes more absorbed in his power, his relationships with the people closest to him begin to deteriorate.

Eventually, Bruce comes to understand something that is easy for us to forget:

Being in control of everything isn't the same thing as being in a relationship with God.

In the end, Bruce gives the job back.

And only then can he begin rebuilding his life, his relationships, and his understanding of what really matters.

Of course, Bruce Almighty is a comedy, but underneath the humor, there is a surprisingly profound spiritual lesson.

We can't have a personal relationship with God and try to be God at the same time.

And if we're honest, that is something most of us struggle with.

We may not want to control the entire universe, but we certainly like controlling our little corner of it.

We want to decide what happens.

We want things to go our way.

We want other people to behave the way we think they should.

We want to know what is going to happen tomorrow.

We want to protect ourselves from uncertainty.

And sometimes, without even realizing it, we want God to become part of our control system.

We want God to bless our plans, solve our problems, give us what we want, and make sure everything turns out the way we think it should.

But that isn't really a relationship.

That's more like trying to get God to work for us.

A personal relationship with God asks us to do something very different.

It asks us to gradually surrender our need to be in control.

That doesn't mean becoming passive or giving up responsibility for our lives. It means recognizing that we are not God, and we don't have to be.

We don't have to know everything.

We don't have to control everything.

We don't have to have all the answers.

And we certainly don't have to carry the entire weight of the world on our shoulders.

There is an enormous freedom in recognizing that.

Maybe that is one of the things a genuine relationship with God gives us.

We can still pursue wealth, success, recognition, comfort, and all the other good things life has to offer. But we can begin holding those things more loosely.

We can enjoy them without allowing them to define us.

We can use them without becoming owned by them.

And we can begin asking a much more important question:

"How can what I have become part of a life shaped by love?"

That question changes everything.

Because the goal of a personal relationship with God isn't to take everything away from us.

It is to help us put everything we have—and everything we are—into its proper perspective.

And perhaps that is the real lesson behind Bruce's experience.

The problem wasn't that Bruce had too much power.

The problem was that he didn't yet understand what power was for.

And maybe the same thing is true of all of us.

The things we have been given—our abilities, our resources, our relationships, our influence, our opportunities, even our limitations—can all become part of a life connected to God.

The question isn't simply, "What do I have?"

The deeper question is:

"What am I going to do with what I have?"

That is where a personal relationship with God begins to make a very real difference in the way we live.

How do we find out what we really want?

So, How Do We Ask?

The answer to that question is actually found in the passage from John’s Gospel we were just talking about.

Jesus simply says:

“Ask.”

Ask God to show you what you really want.

That sounds simple enough, but I think there is a little more to it than simply making a list of things we would like God to give us.

If we are genuinely trying to discover what we really want—and what God wants for us—then the way we ask matters.

So, how do we go about it?

Be Specific

First, be specific.

Tell God what you want.

Don't be afraid to put it into words.

If you want a particular job, say so.

If you want a relationship to change, say so.

If you want healing, direction, financial security, or some other specific thing, tell God.

We don't need to hide behind vague religious language.

And then pay attention.

God's response—or sometimes what seems to be a lack of response—can become one of the clues that help us understand whether what we are asking for is really what we need or whether it is something God wants for us.

That doesn't mean every unanswered prayer is a "no."

It simply means we should be willing to listen to what happens next.

Be Patient

Second, be patient.

This one is difficult for most of us.

We live in a world where we expect almost everything to happen immediately. We can order something today and have it delivered tomorrow. We can send a message and expect an answer within minutes.

But relationships don't work that way.

And neither does our relationship with God.

Our timing and God's timing are not always in sync.

Sometimes we may know what we want, but we aren't ready for it.

Sometimes the circumstances aren't ready.

Sometimes we need to learn something first.

And sometimes, quite honestly, we may discover that what we thought we wanted wasn't really what we wanted at all.

So don't rush the process.

Give God—and yourself—some time.

Be Honest

Third, be honest.

This may be the most important part of asking.

Before we ask God for something, we need to think deeply about what we are actually asking for.

Is this really what we want?

Or is it simply what we think will make us happy right now?

If we got exactly what we are asking for, would we still want it five years from now?

Would it actually make our lives better?

Would it help us become the person we want to become?

Or would it simply satisfy something temporary?

And perhaps the most important question is:

Is this what I really need?

Sometimes what we want and what we need are two very different things.

A personal relationship with God gives us a place where we can be honest enough to discover the difference.

Be Compassionate

Fourth, be compassionate.

Before we decide that something is what we really want, we need to think about how getting it might affect other people.

This is especially important when our desires involve the people closest to us.

What happens to my family if I get what I want?

What happens to my friends?

What happens to the people I work with?

What happens to people I may never even meet?

What happens to the natural world?

We may discover that something that looks wonderful from our perspective has consequences we hadn't considered.

A personal relationship with God gradually teaches us to look beyond ourselves.

So when we ask for something, we can also ask:

"How will this affect the people and world around me?"

That question can change the way we understand what we really want.

Be Realistic

Fifth, be realistic.

There is nothing wrong with having big dreams.

In fact, some of the greatest things that have ever happened began with someone having a dream that seemed impossible.

But we also need to understand the difference between a meaningful request and simply testing God to see what God will do.

World peace is certainly a wonderful thing to want.

But is asking God to give me world peace a realistic request?

Probably not.

Perhaps a better question would be:

"What can I do to bring a little more peace into the part of the world I actually touch?"

That's a question we can do something about.

We don't need to ask God to magically fix everything while we sit back and wait.

Sometimes God's answer to our prayer is not to change the world around us.

Sometimes the answer is to change us and then send us into the world to become part of the answer.

Be Open to God's Guidance

Sixth, be open to God's guidance.

If we are going to ask God what we really want, then we have to be willing to listen for an answer.

That may come through prayer.

It may come through Scripture.

It may come through another person.

It may come through circumstances.

It may even come through a quiet realization that gradually develops inside us.

But we need to be careful here.

Not every thought that pops into our head is God's voice.

Sometimes our own fears, desires, prejudices, and ambitions can sound remarkably spiritual when we want something badly enough.

We can convince ourselves that God wants exactly what we want.

That's why discernment is so important.

God's guidance will not lead us away from love.

It will not lead us toward cruelty, selfishness, hatred, or the destruction of others.

The more deeply we understand God's character, the better we become at recognizing what is consistent with that character.

Be Courageous

Seventh, be courageous.

A personal relationship with God doesn't mean that we will never face difficult things.

We will.

Life will still challenge us.

We will still experience disappointment, loss, uncertainty, and fear.

But we don't have to face those things alone.

That is one of the great gifts of a personal relationship with God.

We can move forward knowing that God's presence and guidance are with us.

We may not know exactly what is going to happen.

We may not know how everything is going to work out.

But we don't have to know everything before we take the next step.

Sometimes courage is simply saying:

"I don't know what is going to happen, but I am not going to face it alone."

And then taking the next step.Be Peaceful

Finally, be peaceful.

This doesn't mean that we will never feel afraid or anxious.

Of course we will.

We are human.

But fear and anxiety don't have to become the things that rule our lives.

If we really believe that God is present with us, then we can begin to let go of the idea that everything depends entirely on us.

We may struggle.

We may suffer.

We may even find ourselves in circumstances we never imagined.

But with God's presence and guidance in our lives, we are never truly lost or defeated.

We may not always get the outcome we hoped for.

We may not understand why something happened.

We may have to walk through some very difficult places.

But we don't have to walk through them alone.

And that can give us a kind of peace that doesn't depend upon everything going our way.

And Perhaps This Is the Greatest Discovery

So, where does all of this leave us?

We begin by asking.

But as we learn to ask, listen, wait, and pay attention, something remarkable can begin to happen.

We may discover that what we really want and what God wants for us are not two completely different things.

In fact, they may be remarkably close.

Perhaps that is one of the most important discoveries we can make in a personal relationship with God.

What we really want and what God wants for us may ultimately be the same thing.

Not because God is going to give us everything on our wish list.

And not because we will suddenly get everything we think we need.

But because, as we become more deeply immersed in God's unconditional love, we begin to discover what authentic life really looks like.

We begin wanting the things that bring life.

We begin wanting relationships that are healthy and loving.

We begin wanting to make a difference.

We begin wanting peace rather than constant control.

We begin wanting meaning rather than simply success.

We begin wanting love rather than approval.

And eventually, we may discover that the deepest desires within us were pointing toward God all along.

Perhaps that is the real promise of a personal relationship with God.

God isn't trying to keep us from getting what we want.

God is helping us discover what we truly want.

And what we truly want may turn out to be exactly what God has wanted for us from the beginning: a full and meaningful life shaped by love, acceptance, meaning, fulfillment, joy, and peace.

So, What Does God Really Want From Us?

Another way of asking the question we have been exploring is this:

What does God really want from us?

If a personal relationship with God isn't primarily about getting God to give us what we want, then what does God actually want from us?

I think the answer is surprisingly simple.

God wants a relationship with us that gradually changes the way we experience and live our lives. And that relationship seems to involve several things that, when we put them together, begin to give us a pretty good picture of what God is looking for.

Connection

First, God wants a connection with us.

God wants our attention. God wants our communication. God wants us to spend time in the relationship.

That can happen through traditional prayer, of course. We can pray out loud, pray silently, sit quietly, or simply talk with God in our own minds while we go about our day.

The important thing isn't necessarily the method.

The important thing is the relationship.

Think about any relationship that really matters to us. It grows because we spend time with the other person. We talk. We listen. We share what is happening in our lives. We become comfortable enough to be honest.

Our relationship with God works much the same way.

If we never spend any time communicating with God, it is difficult to develop a personal relationship.

So perhaps the simplest place to begin is to set aside some time every day and simply talk with God.

It doesn't have to be complicated.

Just show up.

Compassion

Second, God wants us to develop compassion.

That means learning to see other people as real human beings with their own struggles, fears, hopes, disappointments, and dreams.

Compassion is more than feeling sorry for someone. It is learning to care about what another person is experiencing and allowing that awareness to influence the way we respond.

God wants us to develop the ability to look beyond ourselves.

And that means learning to love other people in something of the same way we are learning to understand God's love for us.

The more deeply we experience ourselves as loved and accepted by God, the more capable we become of offering that same kind of love to someone else.

Love

Third, God wants love to become the center of our lives.

This is really the foundation underneath everything else.

A genuine relationship with God isn't something we keep tucked away in one corner of our lives. Eventually, it begins to touch everything.

It affects the way we treat our families.

It affects the way we deal with strangers.

It affects the way we respond to people who disagree with us.

It affects the way we treat the natural world.

It affects the way we use our money, our abilities, our time, and our influence.

Why?

Because God's love isn't self-serving.

God doesn't love us because God needs something from us.

God's desire is for what is right, healthy, whole, and life-giving for all of creation.

And as we become more deeply connected to that love, we begin to understand that our lives aren't meant to revolve entirely around ourselves.

Respect and Care for Others

That leads naturally to the fourth thing: God wants us to respect and care for other people.

Again, this sounds simple.

But it isn't always easy.

It is especially difficult when someone has hurt us, disagrees with us, treats us badly, or seems determined to make our lives difficult.

A genuine relationship with God doesn't mean we will suddenly become perfectly compassionate and patient.

We are still human.

We will still get angry.

We will still become frustrated.

We will still make mistakes.

But the relationship gives us a place to keep learning.

It gives us a reason to keep trying.

And it gives us a foundation for caring about other people even when doing so isn't necessarily in our own self-interest.

That kind of love is difficult.

But without a real relationship with God, I think it becomes nearly impossible.

Truth

Fifth, God wants our honesty.

In other words, don't try to fool God.

It won't work anyway.

We sometimes have a tendency to think we need to present God with the version of ourselves we think God wants to see.

We clean ourselves up.

We hide our doubts.

We disguise our anger.

We pretend we aren't afraid.

We tell God what we think God wants to hear.

But God already knows who we are.

So why not be honest?

Bring God the real person.

Bring the questions.

Bring the doubts.

Bring the anger.

Bring the disappointments.

Bring the things we are proud of and the things we wish nobody knew about.

Bring our actual desires rather than the desires we think we are supposed to have.

Because once we offer our true selves to God, God has something real to work with.

We don't have to pretend to be the person we think we should be.

We can begin where we actually are and allow the relationship to help us become the person we can—and ultimately want—to become.

Gratitude

Sixth, God wants us to develop gratitude.

Not because God needs us to constantly say "thank you," but because gratitude changes the way we experience our lives.

It is remarkably easy to spend our days focusing on what is wrong.

We notice what we don't have.

We think about what didn't work out.

We worry about what might happen tomorrow.

We compare ourselves with other people.

And before long, we can become so focused on what is missing that we completely overlook what is already present.

Gratitude interrupts that pattern.

It doesn't mean pretending everything is wonderful when it isn't.

It simply means taking time each day to recognize the good that is already part of our lives.

A friend.

A conversation.

A beautiful morning.

A meal.

A memory.

A laugh.

A place we love.

A person who cares about us.

Even something as simple as waking up to another day.

When we practice gratitude, we are continually reminded that life itself is a gift.

And that reminder can change everything.

Trust

Finally, God wants us to learn to trust.

And this may be the hardest one of all.

Most of us like to be in control.

We want to know what is going to happen.

We want to make plans.

We want to protect ourselves from whatever might go wrong.

We want to solve the problem before the problem even arrives.

But there is an enormous amount in life that we simply cannot control.

We can't control other people.

We can't control the future.

We can't control every circumstance.

And we certainly can't control the universe.

Trying to do so is exhausting.

A personal relationship with God invites us to gradually let go of that need for control.

That doesn't mean we stop making responsible decisions or stop doing what we can to improve our circumstances.

It means recognizing the difference between what we can control and what we cannot.

And when something falls outside our control, we can learn to place it in God's hands.

That doesn't mean God will always respond in the way we want.

Sometimes the answer will be no.

Sometimes the answer will be wait.

Sometimes the answer will be something we never expected.

But trust allows us to believe that even when God's response isn't the response we wanted, it can still be the response we need.

And perhaps that is what real trust looks like.

Not believing that everything will always go our way, but believing that we don't have to face whatever comes our way alone.

And What Does All of This Add Up To?

So, what does God really want from us?

Connection.

Compassion.

Love.

Respect and care for others.

Truth.

Gratitude.

Trust.

When we put all of these things together, something important begins to emerge.

God isn't asking us to become something we aren't.

God isn't asking us to live a miserable, restricted, rule-filled existence.

And God certainly isn't asking us to give up everything that can bring us joy.

God wants something much more fundamental.

God wants us to become fully alive.

God wants us to experience a life shaped by love, acceptance, meaning, fulfillment, joy, and peace.

And perhaps that brings us right back to where we started.

A personal relationship with God doesn't take us away from authentic life.

It leads us into it.

The relationship gradually teaches us how to live—not simply longer or more successfully, but more deeply.

And maybe that is what we have been looking for all along.

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