Test: How do you know God?

There are a few ways that we can know God. We can know Him specifically and we can know Him in a general or overall way. One doesn’t necessarily mean more intimately than the other. It’s almost more about which way the situation demands.

“There is a way which seems right to a man and appears straight before him, But its end is the way of death.”

PROVERBS 14:12 AMP

This verse doesn’t really seem to apply to what I talked about above, but it so does! When I think about SPECIFIC ways that I know God, what I know to be true of Him and have seem Him do over the years or in the Bible, I can look at a particular situation and find it hard to reconcile my current reality with the God I know.

However…

If I know God in some broad and generalized and overall type of ways, I can always reconcile Him to being good, and good all the time!

““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.”

ISAIAH 55:8 AMP

Take a situation my brother is currently in for example. He decided to move to a new house to get out from under some of the financial burden he was currently in about 10 months ago. Being a child of the Most High, we all assumed his old house would sell quickly and at a profitable price, causing him to come out ahead rather than just getting out of an extra financial burden. Isn’t that what should happen? I know God to be Provider. I know Him to bless beyond measure. I know Him to prosper His children. I know Him to cause His children to have favor. These are all specific things I know, even from previous experience of my own to be true of God. These are MY thoughts about how this situation should play out. And, these are my thoughts BASED on my knowledge of and relationship with God, nor just my worldly expectations.

My brother has yet to sell his house. The goal of moving was to get out from under a financial burden and instead, he has been saddled with TWO house payments over the last ten months! That doesn’t add up to the God I know! Some people would question if my brother is really in God’s will or not. “His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi (Teacher), who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”” JOHN 9:2 AMP It must be something my brother is doing wrong. He must be lacking in faith. He must have some impeding sin in his life…maybe… maybe not!

The very next verse goes on to say, “Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed and illustrated in him.”

JOHN 9:3 AMP

God always has a plan! He ALWAYS takes care of us, even if (mostly when) His way of doing so doesn’t fit in the box we expect it to! Whose to say the person who God has my brother’s old house for isn’t quite ready for it for one reason or another? What if the bank is the hold up? What if that person has some situation keeping them held back from the right timing. What if God is working on some part of character in my brother regarding trusting Him? All sorts of things come into play in all sorts of situations that we can’t account for and will never think of. We only think of us and how our situation affects us. We can’t think as far reaching as God can.

So…

We tend to look at God and box Him into specifics and He is so much more than that and so much more capable than that! When we find ourselves in situations that cause us to question who we KNOW God to be, the main thing we have to do is stay connected to God. Bring those questions to Him and let Him guide us to the other side. In the midst of those situations we may not be able to SEE God working, but if we KNOW that He is, we can get to the other side of it and look back and see Him all over in it! And, as a bonus, we will have grown in character and trust in Him along the way, obtaining tools and arms for all the battles down the road.

Don’t box Him in by specifics. Just trust that He’s got the overall! You WILL see it all line up to the good God you know in the end.

“HE WHO dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust!”

Psalm 91:1-2 AMPC