How to Feel Closer to God through Christ

When someone approaches me about finding a closer walk with God, I don’t say, “Well, just read the Bible and go to church,” because this answer wears thin if you've tried tried it and still feel emotionally distant from God. I suggest instead taking a risk by initiating a conversation with God. And watching how the Lord responds.

What happens when you risk a spontaneous little prayer? When you include the Lord in your inner life. Over the years you learn to invite him into every imaginable situation. But there’s something else. Little heartfelt prayers fulfill the Lord’s desire for companionship with you!

Answers to prayer vary as much as blooming flowers. Some are like pansies that blossom overnight. Others are like bulbs planted in winter soil, which seem not to grow at all; then springtime comes and they erupt with life. Still others are like roses that require care over many years, but their delicate petals and distinctive fragrance make them well worth the effort. Whether God’s reply is quick or seemingly takes forever, you can count on a response.

A Little Prayer of Longing

Gwen made an appointment to see me at a college where I was teaching. A student in my Psychology of Religion course, she had met the assignments, but stayed silent in class.

When she arrived for the appointment, I invited her in and offered her a seat. My desk lamp cast soft light on her frowning face.

“I want to talk about something you said in class the other day,” she said.

I nodded my encouragement.

"You said that God wants a real relationship with each of us. That he knows us by name. That he wants to walk and talk with us.”

“Yes, I believe that’s true,” I said.

“Well, I have a problem. I was raised in a Christian home and went to church all my life. But I don’t feel close to God. It seems like the Lord is way too big to really know about me. I feel like I’m this little grain of sand who shouldn’t bother him.”

“Is it like you know God loves humanity, but why would he want Gwen as his personal friend?”

“Exactly. I’m so ordinary. I’m not that good in school and half the time I feel bored in church. I’m not anything special.”

“Yet you care enough about your relationship with the Lord to come here and talk about it.”

“I guess so. I don’t know what else to do.”

Gwen,” I said, “I wonder if you would dare to ask the Lord to come to you in a private way that you can really recognize. Something that would show that he knows you.”

“You mean just talk to him?” she asked, eyebrows arching.

I nodded. “Maybe you could say a little prayer right now, just the way you are talking to me.”

“Well, this feels kind of awkward, but I’ll try,” she said.

We bowed our heads.

After a moment of silence, she said, “God, I have felt lonely for so long. I go through all the motions of being religious, but I don’t feel you in my life. Please show me that you love me. Help me know you’re really there. Amen.”

When I looked up, Gwen was dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. I sensed that she was opening her heart to God in this little prayer. I wondered how Christ would answer her.

A week later there was a knock on my office door. When I opened it, there stood Gwen with a grin on her face. 

She handed me a bright red greeting card and said, “Go ahead and open it.”

Puzzled, I flipped open the card. The printed message read, “Our friendship will last forever.” Underneath, written in beautiful handwriting, were the words, “Dear Gwen, you don’t know me, but the Lord told me to buy this card and send it to you. He said for you to read Isaiah 43:1. Best wishes.” It was unsigned.

“This card was in my campus mailbox yesterday,” Gwen explained. “I looked up the verse in Isaiah and it says, ‘I have called you by name, you are mine.’”

My heart caught. “And you still don’t know who sent it?”

 “No. But I do know that God loves me!”

What worked for Gwen will work for you: going straight to the Lord when you face a lonely disconnect from God. Like Gwen, you can risk praying to the Lord by "casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you" (1 Pet 5:7 NKJV).

All of Christianity in Two Simple Sentences

Two simple sentences capture the heart of Christian faith:

1) God in Jesus Christ entered human history for a relationship with you.

2) Your relationship with Christ encompasses your personality and entire human nature.

If you took time to read a hundred theology books drawn from the two hundred denominations within Christianity, you would find a hundred different opinions on what constitutes the Christian faith.

That’s why I want to keep it simple! 

I have led many people into personal relationships with Jesus and witnessed their surprise at his love for them. With sadness, though, I have watched some grow lukewarm later on, almost to the degree that they filled their minds with Christianese. In becoming religious they lost the adventure of walking with Christ.

I now understand that sometimes the Christian religion, while needed for presenting Christ to the world, can actually cool a person's heart toward the Lord. This shift from vital encounter to mental belief system did not occur with the disciples. They kept their personal conversations and emotional connection going with Jesus right through his Resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and indwelling in their inner cores through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, they knew the same kind of fear and loneliness that you and I know. But they kept talking and praying to the Lord, entrusting him with their needs, struggles, and occasional misgivings.

So I encourage you to keep it simple. Don’t get carried away with religious nitpickiness.

Learn what you will and expand what you learn, but keep renewing your love for Christ by engaging him in lively conversations. As long as you keep straight that Christianity is not Christ, and that public images of Christ are one step removed from his personal fidelity to you, you are freed from the denominational eccentricities that pervade the Body of Christ.

As long as you commune daily with Jesus, you can read Scripture from Genesis to Revelation without becoming preoccupied by tangents (like self-consciously trying to obey a bunch of rules), or thrown off track by paradoxes that are not easily reconciled (like God’s sovereignty and the problem of evil).

You diversify your exposure to the Christian heritage and enrich your perception of God’s Being by enjoying the sensual beauty of a Catholic Mass, the rousing singing of a Baptist service, the enthusiastic celebration of a Pentecostal revival, the reverence of a Presbyterian worship service, or the relational enrichment of a home Bible study.

So let's carry on today, taking the apostle Paul at his word: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph 3:17-19)." 

For more on how to follow Jesus Christ, see:

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom In Christ

Will God Take Care of Me?

Christianity is at heart a mystery. I don't pretend to fathom its depth that reaches down into the fabric of being, encompassing the salvation of those who trust in Christ and the divine purpose of the cosmos.

For the two billion plus individuals who identify ourselves as Christian, the mystery of Christ's atonement for sin speaks to our personal depths, the discovery of grace and love as a foundation for living, and the emerging selves in Christ that we are becoming.

I lay on a sofa pondering this mystery one night, while also worrying that my wife Kate and I had little money to live on, barely paying the rent, food and gas. Yet at the same time, I realized, we were fully surrendering to the task at hand: writing the next book in our Compass Series.

On the one hand, unexpected reversals had financially devastated us. On the other hand, the anointing of the Holy Spirit had placed fire in our bones to write a book called, Trusting in the Trinity.

On this very night, with our faith in God tested to the max, and mood alternating wildly between psychological anxiety and spiritual ecstasy, a sentence composed itself in my mind—a sentence about the atonement of Jesus Christ for human sin and doorway to God's grace. I got up from the sofa, wrote the sentence on my laptop, and pondered its meaning, still not knowing how we would survive next month's bills.

Here is that sentence:

"Knowing that human beings learn from practical object lessons, God called a people to himself after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, a people now living in tents below Mount Sinai, a newly constructed tabernacle with its Holy of Holies in their midst, with Aaron, the high priest divinely appointed to fulfill God’s instruction through Moses that once every year on the day of atonement, he would select a bull without spot or blemish, which would represent the people, and sword in hand, he would lay hands on the bull’s head, a picture of vicarious identification with the children of Israel, followed by a sharp slash to cut the bull’s throat; a bowl underneath filling with spurts of blood, Aaron would sprinkle this blood on the mercy seat atop the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, specially crafted for the purpose that without blood there is no remission of sin; a blood offering given in obedience to God’s command that by faith in the sin offering the people would find forgiveness, the bull dying in place of the nation, the blood holding a historical place until, in the fullness of time, Jesus Christ offered his own blood, our hands upon his head, his throat figuratively slashed like the bull’s, a vicarious atonement for the sins of the whole human race, and the curtain in the Jerusalem temple separating humanity from the Holy of Holies rent from top to bottom, signifying that through the sacrifice of Christ for the Trinity’s love of humanity, individuals can become sons and daughters of the living God (Heb 10)."

I left a note on the kitchen table, asking Kate to read it the next morning, and see if it made any sense to her. The next day she responded positively, and we both agreed that it helped us see the connection between the Old and New Testaments, and between the Jewish sacrificial system and the new covenant that came through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our personal Passover Lamb.

Not only this, but it seemed to offer us emotional comfort, because it somehow conveyed that delivering human beings from the penalty of sin cost God everything, yet opened the doorway to full and liberating fellowship with God.

Now about the bills. We ate a lot of oatmeal and beans, and received two years of free housing in a very gracious friend's retirement home. We gave away most of our worldly possessions, but were happy in this monastic existence, knowing that we did have food, shelter, and gas, and just as important as these earthly provisions, we had the peace of Christ in our souls. We knew that God was taking care of us—we had what we needed.

 For more help in understanding the atonement of Christ:

Trusting in The Trinity: Compass Psychotheology Applied

How To Trust God and Feel God's Love

Whatever chaos is in the world, whatever governments are in power, and whether Christianity is in or out of favor, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite you to walk and talk with them every single day.  

Your communication with the Trinity is not contingent upon external factors, but internal ones. Your whole personality and human nature are the means of communion with God, and that communication is a spontaneous ongoing interaction.

What a pleasure.

What a mystery.

What an adventure!

In developing your individuality in Christ, you speak your mind to God, disclose feelings of every sort, and surrender your life and body to his care. 

The Lord, in turn, may respond by composing sentences in your mind, hugging your heart with tender care, or imparting serenity to your body, a tangible peace that calms your nervous system and melts your muscles.

As in any close bond, conversation with God sometimes sings like poetry, and other times feels uncertain and awkward. If you come to a place where God seems distant and your burden heavy, get back to the basics. Kneel at your bedside for several nights, praying for the rejuvenation of a lively faith. 

The Lord is right there with you. He will help remove any obstacles and rouse your awareness of the Holy Spirit’s power and presence, for “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God,who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

There's more on how to trust God and feel his love consistently: 

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom in Christ.