A relationship with God 2

Even after realizing that God was always with me, I remember how at 1st I badly wanted someone to teach me His Word. I read and studied it on my own every day, but I was just sure I was missing more then I was getting. I'd read the verses that tell us that God is our teacher, but felt that I just wasn't smart enough or something for Him to be able to get through to me. I told myself that I didn't doubt God, but instead doubted myself. I didn't realize at the time just how sinful that thought was, as I didn't follow it through to it's logical conclusion - I'm more powerful then God and smarter then He is since I can prevent Him from doing what He says He will. Praise God that He is a merciful, loving God and understands us much better then we understand ourselves and doesn't treat us as our sins deserve.

I even prayed, asking God to send me a teacher, but He didn't - at least not for quite awhile. Instead, He showed me that He really was teaching me. I thought the way He reassured me was pretty neat too as it combined another thing I was unsure of still. Since I was still getting to know Him, I was also struggling with how to tell the difference between His Voice and my own thoughts.

Each day I spent time reading His Word and talking to Him about what I was reading. I'd comment on it, ask Him questions about it etc. When I asked Him questions, sometimes it would make me think of another verse, either right away, or later on. When that happened, just in case it was the Lord leading me, I'd go to that scripture and read there for a bit. What amazed me was that it always pertained to whatever it was He was teaching me about, even when I didn't think so at first. Being stubborn however, I thought maybe it was just a coincidence. Then other things would happen. When I was able to go to church, it was as though someone had been spying on my time with the Lord each day and had told the Pastor what I'd learned from the Lord, and especially anything I was questioning whether or not it was from the Lord! It was like the pastor was talking directly to me!

By the way, when I studied with Him, all I had at the time was my bible. Bruce did buy me a Strong's Concordance but I couldn't use it as it was too heavy for me to hold due to my disability and the surgery I'd had. So I had no commentaries or anything at all except my Bible and my God.

Other weird things started happening besides seeming like the pastor was talking to me. Someone might call or stop by and out of the blue, they'd bring up the very subject or scriptures I was studying and tell me that their pastor had told them something neat about it and then proceed to tell me exactly what the Lord had been teaching me that week!

As time went by and I became more and more used to strange things like that happening to confirm that the Lord was indeed teaching me. I would like to point out though that I knew the Lord was causing them to happen because I'd prayed about it and He knew I needed reassurance. He was answering my prayers. That was another area of my life that had changed. Instead of having a time of prayer and then not praying again unless there was an emergency or something like that, until the next days prayer time came, I was now praying all the time. Not "formal" prayers, but simply talking to Him. It just grew out of our study time. Since I talked to Him while I was studying, it just seemed natural to continue to talk to Him throughout the rest of the day, so I did.

What truly amazed me was that I seemed to be somehow more in tune with the Lord, and as time went by, that seemed to get stronger and stronger. Often the Lord would warn me before something happened so I could pray about it before hand. It was actually kind of spooky the first few times it happened, but eventually just felt normal. It didn't even occur to me that anything different was happening until I overheard Bruce tell one of his friends that he should ask me to pray about it for him because God always answered my prayers right away. I heard the friend start to laugh and then Bruce told him that He was really serious and began to give him examples. I hadn't even been aware that Bruce had paid any attention to those things, but he had. Hearing him tell his friend about them is what made me realize just how much had changed in my life.

I no longer doubted that God was teaching me. I knew He was! I talked to Him constantly and it didn't occur to me to doubt if He was listening, not after all the times He'd shown me He was by having the pastor talk about something there was no way He could have known about! And because I talked to Him all the time and listened for Him too, it didn't occur to me to wonder when He'd answer anything I prayed about. I simply knew He would answer me. If the answer wasn't immediate, then I knew there was a good reason for that and He'd answer when the time was right. I realized too that the Lord had somehow become my friend. A real friend. Yet there was a difference between our friendship and say my friendship with another person. In our friendship, there was never any doubt about who was in charge or who was Lord and who was servant. At the same time though, there was a love there that filled and still fills every part of me. God has continued to show me ever since then, that there is no area of my life that He doesn't want to be an intimate part of; there's nothing I can't talk to Him about.

I've discovered that God is the greatest teacher anyone can have. Since that beginning, the Lord has blessed me with a huge bible library full of commentaries, and every kind of theological book you can think of. It's truly awesome! There is no one He cannot teach! It's really wonderful to have a living, growing relationship with Him too. Another great thing about it is that He wants to have this kind of relationship with everyone. There's nothing magical about it either. All you have to do is ask!

Job 36:22 —“God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? *