-To know his scent

-To know his voice

-To know the way he would handle a situation

-To know the decision he would make

-To know what emotions would arise in him

Like a wife knows her husband:

A wife knows what kind of coffee her husband drinks

She knows the music he listens to when he gets ready in the morning.

She knows what will comfort him when he has had a hard day.

She knows when he desires to talk about something serious.

As a wife knows everything about her husband, I have a desire to KNOW our God.

Through my seeking of God’s love, he has shown me many different ways he shares his love with us.

His word

Long before we as a generation were ever on this earth, He wrote us a love letter. With powerful words, he writes his heart to us. He tells us the story of his people, lost and torn from him. He tells us of a Son, sent to display his love and forgiveness. He writes encouragement, and words to live by. He writes things for correcting and rebuking. He writes all of this for us to get to KNOW him. By reading his Word, we learn different characteristics of God. We get to KNOW God.

Worship

When we sing to God, there is a freedom. There is a release of this world, and a focus on a direct conversation with our God. We are shouting to him, displaying our heart to him.  There is a holy communication. Through the words of songwriters, through the beats of drummers, through the voice of a singer, we are led to God. The more we praise him, the closer we draw near to him, the more we KNOW God.

Prayer

A lot of us forget the power of prayer. I am guilty myself of not having faith in prayer. I know God tells us to pray, and I’ve seen prayer be effective. Yet, I forget about it. I don’t put any focus into it. But the fact is, prayer works. One thing we often forget is prayer is a conversation with God- not just us talking to God. It’s not just a blog post for God to read, a diary entry for him to flip through. He wants to respond. Let God have a word in. Pause, be patient. Wait. Listen. God will respond. You may not hear an audible voice. But the Holy Spirit will guide you. He will motivate your thoughts. He will tell you what God is saying. Through this conversation with our Creator, we get to KNOW God.

Now, heres the one that gets me. The one that brings twinkles to my eyes. Sometimes even full heavy tears. The one that even when people say “Your word is false. Your worship is fake. Your prayers are useless”, they cannot cut apart. What emotions, struggles, doubts were erased, changed, gone because of something that can only be explained by the Holy Spirit. Something we Christians love to call, “A Total God Thing.”

Testimonies

Last semester, I was forced to participate in Saltshaker. Okay, maybe not forced. But let’s be real, if I hadn’t Meredith would have had a heart attack. Everyone at the retreat arrived at the church. Ben Donley gathered everyone into a room and said “Okay, now lets spill our souls.” I thought he was joking. One by one, each of us stood in the middle of the circle and told our whole life story. What we had gone through since childhood, middle school, last year. The things we had cried about. The things we felt alone in. We told our secrets. One of these stories in particular brought me to tears.

Not the cute, silent roll down your face, wipe away with one finger tears. Big, heavy, body shaking “Oh my gosh, should I pat her on the back or go get her a bucket to catch all those tears and send to thirsty kids in Africa?” tears. The kind of tears that made everyone around me feel awkward. Ask Meredith, its funny to hear her tell how she felt in that moment. Whatever.

And those tears motivated me to share my story. I had already selfishly decided I would not share the pain in my life, when it was my turn. I would give the sweet “Jesus loved me, I accepted him into my heart” intro and leave it at that. I would say “And, ever since then Ive never had any problems. My lifes been perfect.” I was going to lie. But after hearing someone open up with the story that had brought me to tears, I couldn’t. If he could share, I had to share.

I blame Saltshaker for a lot.

Saltshakers made me soft, sensitive, a baby. Not the “to

ugh, guy-friendly, emotionless, confident” person I had built myself into. A dumb youtube video will cause my throat to catch. A note on facebook will make me sob. A God conversation with a friend will change my whole week. Watch out, freshman. Pisses me off. That crap rocks your world.

The point is, the story that was shared was something I related to. It was something I could understand. It was God telling me a story of a way he had shown love, in a way that I could grasp. It was a way for God to reveal himself to me- For me to get to KNOW him.

When people share what God has done in their life, it is exciting. They are excited to share it. They know whatever God did is something only God could have done, something the Holy Spirit cooked up.

So share it. Even its small. Even if it’s a silly story that happened in the Market at lunch. Even if its something you’ve been silently carrying with you for years. It will bring God glory. It will help someone get to KNOW God.