Getting to know God

Taking into account Christians believe in a God who came to introduce Himself to man, the idea of getting to know God should not sound to us as utopia. As God chose to develop a long and slow relationship with man, getting to know God could easily be started with a general review of how He has shown Himself to man throughout history.

The Old Testament

In the Old Testament, God shows Himself as almighty, jealous, and strict, among others. You can see His power in all those occasions in which you read about God fulfilling His promises (barren women bearing children, and the like), and very remarkably against the Egyptian Pharaoh before the Exodus. You can see His jealousy by the way in which those who disobeyed God were punished by their own wrongdoings, like when Sarah was turned into a statue of salt for turning back to see God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. You can see God strictness when referring to the first years of the people of Israel or His laws in the Pentateuch. In those books (which are also known as the Torah), God explicitly asked us not to tolerate the minimum wrongdoing around us. Thus, laws which mentioned the stoning to death of women who were caught in adultery and homosexuals were not rare.

In the Old Testament, you will find that most of the time God used prophets to communicate His wishes to His people; but you will also find a few occasions in which God took part in the history of specific individuals, like in the cases of Job, David, and Solomon. Read those books, and you will meet a different side of God, the one in which He takes some time to provide man with some education. Actually you might end up liking how He refers to prayer, righteousness and wisdom, even about the relationship between man and woman in those books. They show a God fond of the simplicity and deepness of common sense.

Lastly, take nature as example and you will see that God is also very creative, and a perfectionist. Everything in this world has a purpose. Every form of life is conceived to help everything continue in a perfect balance. It is clear that God has created everything in the world with an order. He wants us to use it in that manner. Go against that, and your deeds may be considered sinful.

The New Testament

The coming of Jesus to the world (God for Catholics, the son of God for Protestants, a Prophet for Jews and Muslims) showed God's deepness in a more direct way. Jesus' life itself might be taken as a clear example of how God would like us to live (without exaggerations, there's no need to get crucified again, OK?).

I could summarize Jesus' life on earth in three clear steps. After living a normal human life, he went to the desert to get to know God, and then he used this knowledge to make a change in the world.

Yes, it is honestly this simple. The Bible states clearly that the first thing Jesus did after receiving the baptism of John was "to go to the desert for forty days", which, regardless of the symbolism of the number, means that Jesus sort of isolated himself to meditate, pray, and get to know God deeply while communicating with Him. What else you could do if you were alone in the desert for forty days, without mobile phones or Internet?

After those forty days, Jesus used this understanding to make a change in the world. Reading his life, you will see how God wants our daily lives to be: examples of common sense, of work that changes things around us as well as communication with Him.

You

With all this preamble, time has come to talk about you and I having a relationship with God. Can you have a personal relationship with God? Yes you can. It is clear that God wishes to have a relationship with people. The question would be how to develop it. I think there would be four paths to explore in order to achieve it.

The first path is decidedly prayer. Talking with God, regardless of the length of your prayers, will, so to speak, tune up your dial with God's radio station. It might not happen immediately, but it will happen, so go ahead. Do it.

The second path is the Bible. Known as the Word of God, the Bible is full of teachings which will show you what God is like, what He wants of man, and what He wants from you. I have already made a summary of a few main ideas line above. Just make sure to read the bible correctly.

The third path would be sacraments (Catholic and Orthodox Christians only). Sacraments are given and received considering themselves as the true presence of God fulfilling actions in man. Receiving them will for sure get you closer to God, as they will be God acting in you.

The last path is usually the most forgotten: people. There is a breath of God in every person on earth, go ahead and discover it. You might end up learning a lot.

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