I want to talk to you about intimacy with God, and knowing God. I didn’t come to sell you anything. I already said my book is free. Even though I’m the author, I had to pay the publisher quite a bit for those copies. If you knew me, you would know that I would have paid good money, a lot of money if they had asked for it, just to come and talk about God.
I could give you a motivational speech. That’s nice, but it just doesn’t last. I could talk about doing random acts of kindness toward others. That too is nice. But then you leave and you’re thinking about what you need to do, and what you don’t do right now. If the emphasis is not on a relationship with God first, it all adds up to being dead religion—man’s attempt to please God.
But I’m talking about having a relationship with God. I’m talking about knowing and talking to Him like you would your best friend.
You see, all I need to do is come and create an atmosphere for God to show up, and He takes care of the rest. I don’t need to sell you on God, He can handle that Himself. It’s up to you whether you choose to experience Him or not. I believe many will. There is no doubt that His presence is here right now, because I asked Him to be.
How Intimacy Changed the Way I Hear God’s Voice
I don’t talk to God the same way I used to 20 years ago. I don’t think the same thoughts I used to think. I don’t ask Him the same questions I used to ask. I don’t approach Him in the same way I used to.
I talk about our approach to God a lot in my book. I don’t concern myself with how I look, or if I should bow my head, or fold my hands when I approach God. I’m way past that, thank God. All that did is block me from experiencing intimacy with God.
A lot of the questions are gone from my conversations with God. A lot of the “what if’s” and the wondering have disappeared. I approach God in a totally different way than I used to 20 years ago. It’s much like how my conversations with my wife have grown since we’ve been married. Why? Because we have grown in intimacy.
I’m very deliberate when I pray. I don’t just pull things out of thin air, or spit out whatever thought comes to my mind. I check first to see if it is indeed God’s will for my life. But when I ask Him for something according to His will, I expect it, and it shows up. Sometimes it shows up right away, sometimes years go by—but it shows up. Some things I’m still waiting for today, but they’ll show up. Some are very little things, some are pretty big things, and some are miracles.
The Joy of Hearing God’s Voice in Your Heart
Who wouldn’t want to know God? Who wouldn’t want to be intimate with Him? One of the many joys is hearing God speak to you personally. I’m not talking about hearing God’s voice audibly. I’m talking about hearing His voice in your heart.
Hearing His quiet, still voice speak to you. Most of the time when you learn to hear how God speaks to you, it will be in this way. It may be something that comes to your mind—some thought that comes to you—but it’s clearly God speaking. There’s no doubt about it.
You could hear an audible voice, but most never do. It doesn’t make God any less intimate or any less real.
I have had a dream where I have heard God’s audible voice. I don’t share that with many people, hardly anyone, actually. But I had a dream where I heard God speak to me by name intimately, and I heard His audible voice. I was probably around 20 years old at the time. You can just imagine what it would be like to hear His voice audibly.
I woke up and I was very shaken. And yet it was the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I won’t tell you exactly what He said to me because that would be very intimate. But I can say this—the sound of His voice is the most beautiful thing you’ll ever hear in your life. Once you’ve heard His voice you don’t want to hear anything else.
Hearing God’s Voice in Prayer and Miracles
I didn’t come to impress you. In fact, I would rather be sitting in your chair listening to someone else. But I want you to know that you also, like me, can experience intimacy with God. And once you experience God come into your life, and even do miracles in your life and in others, you’re going to lose your interest in a lot of other things in life. Because nothing compares to experiencing God.
I remember praying for a woman several years ago. She asked me to pray for her; she said her foot was infected, gangrene had set in. Her doctor told her she may have to have the foot amputated.
I didn’t see any noticeable change in her after we prayed together. She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t ask. But every day for the next two weeks I kept thanking God for healing her. I would say, “Thank you, God, for healing Lori. You are so good. I just knew you would be good to her, and heal her.” And I meant it.
Two weeks later, she came up to me at church with her husband, with tears running down her cheeks, and said, “God healed me.” She said, “The moment you put your hand on me and began to pray, I felt this warmth touch me on the top of my head, and flow down throughout my body into my feet, and then leave my body.”
She said, “It was as if the sickness was washing out of my body, and the healing was flowing in.” She went to the doctor that week and he looked at her foot and said, “The infection is gone, we don’t need to amputate your foot.”
That’s the goodness of God. That’s the reality of praying, believing, and walking closely with Him.
When God Spoke to Me About My Dad
I remember when my dad was still alive, and he was very sick and in the ICU in the hospital. It looked like he was on his deathbed. I remember leaving the hospital and praying to God.
I said, “Father, I ask you to have mercy on my dad and extend his life.”
It wasn’t an audible voice. But it was a voice that spoke back to me, just as clear as my voice is to you right now. I heard God say to me, “I will do the very thing you’ve asked, but just so you know, I’m not doing it for your dad, I’m doing it for you, because you have found favor in my sight.”
And He did. My dad got up off of that bed and left the hospital, and I was able to enjoy another three years with him before he died. That’s priceless.
Generations, Favor, and Intimacy With God
There are several places in the Bible where God either describes Himself or His character to us. In one of those it says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to 1000 generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.”
I remember sharing that Bible verse with our son Josiah when he was younger. I said, “Josiah, do you know what you should desire more than anything? You should desire that your dad lives for God and intimately pursues Him. Do you know why? Because it will go well with you if I do.”
You talk about the benefits and blessings of intimacy with God—are you kidding me? It’s right there. He keeps His covenant of love to 1000 generations of those who love Him.
I was trying to hold back the tears as I was explaining this to my son. I said, “Josiah, someday you’re gonna get yourself into a bad situation—you’re gonna mess up. And all of a sudden that situation is going to turn on a dime and change. You’re not gonna understand it, but you’re gonna be shown favor and a way out, and you’re not gonna get what you deserve. And it’s not going to necessarily be because of you. But God is going to be looking at you, and He’s not going to see you, He’s going to see my face as He looks at you. And He is going to remember my faithfulness and love for God, and my intimacy with Him. And He is going to show you favor, not because of you, but because of your dad.”
My wife and I have seen this happen time and again with our kids. We look at each other and say, “How did that happen? There is no way that they should have gotten out of that situation. That’s the favor of God.” Or, “Why were they chosen among all of those people, instead of someone else? There’s no way that should have happened, except for the favor of God.”
Moments That Mark You Forever
We all have a short list of our favorite movies of all time. I think we change the list from time to time, or maybe just tweak it a little. In 1995 they did a remake of the 1954 movie Sabrina. My wife and I loved it, and we must have watched it three or four times within a very short period of time. One of my favorite lines from the film came from the actress who played Sabrina. She said, “At first it was just a dream, and then it wasn’t, and then it was again.”
My dad passed away about 15 years ago. You remember where you were at the exact time of a significant event, don’t you? You remember where you were, how it felt, and how you responded.
I remember where I was when I heard the news about 9/11. I remember people freaking out, I remember how I responded to that. And I remember when I received the phone call that my dad had passed away. I’ll never forget it. I’d like to. You wish that some things had never happened to you.
At first it was just like a dream. “Is this really happening?” Then it wasn’t like a dream—the reality and weight of it came crashing down upon me. Then it was like a dream again. “What just happened? Can I just wake up the next day and perhaps none of this really happened?”
Everything stopped in my life in a moment of time. Time itself seemed to stop, everything was just at a complete standstill. Everything else in life just seemed to disappear, nothing else mattered. Everything I was interested in on a daily basis became nothing to me. I had no desire to eat, no desire to turn on the evening news. I didn’t care how the stock market did that day. I didn’t care if my favorite sports team won or lost. I tried to work, and I did, but it was as if I wasn’t even there, just going through the motions.
At that moment, nothing else matters in our lives except that one thing we are going through. It’s obvious, in moments like these, we realize what really matters in life and what doesn’t.
Experiencing God and the Indescribable
In some similar ways, there are some truths here that we can relate to experiencing God. Except for this one thing: there is nothing like experiencing God. There is nothing to compare it to. What would you compare God to? There aren’t words in the human vocabulary. God is simply indescribable.
We find ourselves at a loss for words, so we just simply close our mouths and gaze at His beauty. Time seems to stand still. We remember the moment.
I’m hoping that moments like these are times when you will experience God. One of the keys to experiencing God and knowing Him intimately is this: you can’t be in a hurry if you want to experience intimacy with God. It just won’t happen if you are in a hurry.
We don’t take the time to smell the flowers, dance in the puddles, or linger at the crosswalk. We rush right past 1000 faces on our way to… nowhere.
“The beauty and the delight of a dream is lost to the reality of a life of busyness. What an opportunity that has been bestowed upon us. If only we would allow ourselves the freedom to dance in the puddles, to linger at the crosswalks of life. But we are too mature for all of that, of course. That is how we think, that is who we are. Hence, the longings go unfulfilled, the dreams remain a wish that never comes true.”
Purpose, Destiny, and Walking With God
We were all put here on this earth for such a greater purpose and destiny than what our day-to-day life tells us is true. Our day-to-day life tries to tell us that this is all there is.
You work the same 9 to 5 job like you have done for years, going through the same routines. You spend your day getting yourself ready for the day, getting yourself ready for the next day, doing chores around the house, caring for and raising your children. Then the next day you start all over and do the same thing you did the day before. Perhaps you get a day off, and you’re able to relax a little and enjoy yourself.
That’s the story that life tries to tell us. It tells us things will always be the same, you don’t have any greater purpose or destiny.
Then there are experiences along the way that tell us otherwise. These experiences shape us, they shape our thinking. Sometimes they even shake us up a little. But they get us to the point where we say, “No, I don’t accept that, that idea that this is all there is to life. There must be something more. I must have a greater purpose and destiny.”
Some days we’re right on the verge of quitting and giving up on life, other days we’re inches away from great breakthrough in our lives, and we just don’t realize it. There is sometimes a thin veil that separates the two.
So it is with our experience of God. Except that there really isn’t a veil separating us, other than the one we have created. But when we experience Him and step through to the other side, our lives are changed forever. Our lives are marked by that experience and it’s never the same again. Though you still have the same duties in life, someone else has stepped into your life, into your day-to-day living with you. And for the first time, you now have a glimpse of that greater purpose and destiny.
Childlike Faith and Hearing God’s Voice
Sometimes it takes a considerable amount of time, even years, to come to the realization of God’s reality, His goodness, and His purpose for us.
A 12-year-old doesn’t wake up one day and say, “Mom and Dad love me. You know, I was thinking about it this morning as I was lying in bed, and it must be true.”
No, what happens is years and years of your parents nurturing you, feeding you, providing for you, protecting you. It all adds up to unconditional love.
In a similar way, sometimes through our many experiences in life, we wake up one day and say, “There must be a God, and He must be good.” It always takes childlike faith, from the first day you called upon Him to the day you start walking intimately with Him. In fact, Jesus said, “Unless you become like a child, you cannot even enter the Kingdom of heaven.”
I put an emphasis in my book on childlike faith and approaching God like a child. I sometimes hesitate to make that connection because of my concern that people won’t be able to relate to the life of a child. We look at children and tend to think, “That’s nice, that’s so sweet. But my life is so far removed from the world that a child lives in.”
If a child lived in your world, what would they be like? You don’t approach a child playing in the sandbox and say to them, “Hey, what do you think about the stock market?” Nor do you ask them their views on politics or social injustice. We can’t fit your world into the life of a child, but you can put on the likeness of a child, and we can put you back into your world as a new person. Then you can experience life in a new way; moreover, you can experience God in a new way.
“As I wrote in my book, to force your world on a little child would be awkward, burdensome, of no use. For young children, it’s not a matter of being able to understand your world or possessing the capacity to deal with adult issues. That is obviously missing in a child. But children possess something far more valuable than that. They have the capacity to approach everything in life in a state of innocence. The heart and mind of a young child were created by God to be innocent of the clutter that darkens your world.”
You can bring a child into your world, but they will continue to live as though they belong to a different one. And so must we. That’s how we approach God in freedom—like we belong to a different world.
A Final Word on Intimacy and Hearing God’s Voice
Thank you for giving me the time to share this with you. I hope that you seize the opportunity that you have to experience God and develop intimacy with Him. There is no greater legacy that you could leave for your children than to walk intimately with God.
If you feel like you haven’t even started on this journey of experiencing God, or you have any other questions about what I shared, I would love to talk to you. And I would love to pray with you, if you desire.
There is nothing like knowing God, walking with Him, and hearing God’s voice in your life.