PART TWO: What vs. Whom

THE FIRST STEP

For your First Step today, you will need a blank piece of paper and some sort of timer. Set the timer for five minutes. On the paper, write everything you know about God until time is up. There are no right or wrong answers; just note whatever flows from your heart.

When you are done, reread what you have written about God, then analyze the kind of information you’ve reported. Is your understanding of Him more factual or personal? Do you have a textbook knowledge of the Lord, or does your perception of Him come from an intimate relationship with Him?

SEEKING HIS PATH

You were created for a deep, meaningful relationship with the Lord. But when you have only an informational view of Him, you have an incomplete understanding about Him. Psalm 103:7 tells us, “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.” There is a difference between God’s ways and His acts. For example, the people of Israel witnessed His acts when they saw the plagues pronounced upon Egypt (Exodus 7-12) and the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14). Although they were eyewitnesses to His grand deeds, they did not know Him, and they often exhibited faithlessness because their bond with Him was so weak.

Moses, on the other hand, sought to know God’s ways (Exodus 33:13). The Lord’s ways are different than His acts because they are not so much about what He does, but about who He is. How does God think? What motivates Him? Why does He allow certain things to affect our lives? What is His ultimate goal? Moses was able to walk through very difficult times with the Lord because his connection with Him was so deep and strong, he had learned to trust God in everything.

The same can be true for us. The Father wants us to know far more about Him than just what He does—He wants us to know Him. And when we have a desire to know His ways, our relationships with Him become genuinely intimate. True, godly intimacy involves deep fellowship within a relationship. Though the world has hijacked the word “intimacy” to mean physical or sexual contact, this is not what it means in our relationships with God.

Rather, intimacy with Him is a close, personal relationship that touches the soul and the hidden places of our hearts like nothing else can. By knowing the Lord’s heart in such a profoundly personal way, we understand that His character is trustworthy deep within us—that He knows and cares for us with a pure, unconditional, everlasting love and that He would never harm us. It is then that we trust Him enough to fully surrender ourselves to Him from the very core of our beings.

DEEPER IN INTIMACY; FURTHER IN OBEDIENCE

When we have a truly intimate relationship with the Lord, we go beyond being obedient to God’s commands in the hope that He’ll bless us. We submit to Him because we know His way is right, best, and superior to anything we could possibly imagine.

Have you gotten to this point in your relationship with the Father? Many times as believers, we say we want to know and do God’s will. But what we really mean is that we want perfect, trouble-free marching orders so we can reach our own goals. We obey Him with outward expressions of devotion so He will bless our plans. This is far from what the Lord really wants from us. Rather, to do His will, we must walk in His ways. And we cannot walk in His ways until we surrender ourselves to Him with a deep, complete, and intimate trust.

YOUR WALK OF FAITH

Read Psalm 25:4-5. Are you willing to pray this passage as a prayer of commitment? Rewrite this passage in your journal as your prayer of devotion to the Lord.