After a conversation with one of my squad mates this week, I began questioning how well I really knew God. Did I truly know His character? Was what I thought of him actually accurate?
I don’t think we can fully and completely comprehend everything that God is. Our minds can only understand a portion of His vastness, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t created some false God in my head or was understanding Him wrong. As I began thinking about my relationship with God and my understanding of Him, I began making a list of how He has revealed himself to me.
This is what I know for sure about God:
I know I only feel at home in Him. I know that He is the only one who can comfort me and give peace to my soul and to my mind. I know He is a King of glory. I know He is majestic and powerful beyond my comprehension. I know he has been since before time and will continue to be even after time. I know that He is good and that He is love. And I also know that He is just and would never mock His name. I know that He is full of mercy and that He cares for people even when they could care less about Him.
I know He is real because of faith and because I believe in His word and because I have seen His works. I have seen His glory in church, in nature, and in the way His people praise Him. I have seen His power in people being healed (my brother Pete for one, a squad mate at training camp, and a woman in Guatemala a few years ago that I prayed over), also in His Spirit’s work even today to break chains, to heal hearts, and to bring people to eternal life with Him. I know His goodness by the way He takes care of me, by the way He keeps His promises (like me going to the nations and getting funded for this trip), by the way He provides daily bread for me, and by how lavishes his love on me. I know he likes to take us on crazy adventures and provides more than we could ever even think to ask or could imagine (like bringing me on the World Race, giving me the chance to work with an amazing team, and the experience of hiking a volcano 15,000 feet in the Andes mountains). I know that He sustains me everyday. I know He cares for me and for every single person on this Earth. And I know He always desire’s to see us turn to Him.
Understanding who God is can be difficult at times, because the God I believe in and love is an unseen God. I don’t know what he looks like and I can’t say I’ve directly touched Him. Instead, he reveals himself in ways like a deep knowing inside my heart that he is real. Or the way he comforts my soul and gives me peace. I know my Heavenly Father by His word and his Holy Spirit. Tangibly, I see his glory in things like the sun that he makes rise every morning and the majestic mountains like the ones here in Ecuador.
Who else could have created such glory?
I don’t know everything about God, but I am thankful for what He has revealed to me in my 23 years of life and I can’t wait to discover even more deeply who he is and what He is doing in the world. I am thankful for times like hiking Pichincha Volcano when he shows so clearly his goodness and majesty and speaks so clearly His love for me.
How has God revealed Himself to you? I encourage you to reflect on this and make note of the ways he’s shown Himself to you. After all, he is so close.
“…They should seek God and perhaps feel their way towards Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each of us.” Acts 17:27
“The Lord is near to all who call on Him.” Psalm 145:18
“Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Hebrews 11:6
