The problem with humans talking about having a “relationship” with God is that when we hear the word “relationship,” we immediately place human characteristics all over it. Why shouldn’t we? Most of us have grown up listening to our Pastor talk about his discussions with God as though God came down in human form and chatted with him, face to face, as though it was nothing at all. “Personal relationship” is not the best words to describe our knowing Him. I’m beginning to think we should call it a “knowing” and just leave it at that. When we say “relationship,” we expect every human aspect of relationship to be manifested and the truth is, that just doesn’t happen.

How do you have relationship with someone you can neither see nor hear? We’ve all grown up listening to people describe their “relationship” with God as if it were exactly the same as all their earthly relationships. They claim to actually hear His voice, they claim to talk back and forth with Him like they would a neighbor or a best friend and they even claim that He wakes them up in the middle of the night every now and then for a chat. When we hear of this, it’s confusing, because if anyone is really honest, it just doesn’t happen that way. I will tell you on a personal level that when I hear people talk about God as though they are experiencing this kind of relationship, my first inclination is to suggest that they see a psychiatrist and consider going on some sort of medication. I’ve also noticed that every single time I’ve encountered a person who claims to have this human-like relationship with God; their life is almost always in shambles. That “voice” they claim to hear, is constantly offering contradictions. One day it tells them to pack up and move to Colorado, only to change its mind three weeks later and have them move back. One day it tells them to apply for a job at such-and-such place and the next day, they don’t even get called for an interview. I have found that “voice hearers” are crazier and more lost than those of us who have the guts to admit that we don’t hear anything.

After listening to some people describe their “relationship” with God, I found myself turning my ear upward to the sky after prayer and then waiting to hear an audible voice. Who wouldn’t think this way after hearing these people talk? I would go on long walks and talk to Him and then wait for hours trying to hear His response. Nothing! It just about killed me. I felt like an idiot who couldn’t get it. More than anything, I felt rejected by God. Why wasn’t He talking to me this way?

In the Church, because we so desperately want everyone to think that we’ve got it, we will expend all our energy trying to convince everyone around us that we’re getting it, rather than come clean about what we don’t understand. We are having this exact conversation with one of our daughters. We have to constantly remind her that if she doesn’t understand something, she needs to raise her hand and ask for clarification. We tell her that she can’t just sit there silently and act like she’s got it so that no one will know she doesn’t. Sadly, we struggle with the same thing in our own lives when it comes to God.

Let me say quite clearly that I have NEVER heard an audible voice from God. I quit trying for that about ten years ago when I began to feel my sanity slipping away. I also don’t have human conversations with God where I talk and then He talks and we have a complete dialogue that is exactly like what I might have with a good friend. I’ve never come to a fork in the road in my life and then clearly hear God telling me to go one way or another. What I have with Him does not resemble my human relationships in any way.

For me, personally, I understand that God is love. To experience communion with God, we must experience communion with Love. The experience of love is not when you receive it from people, but it’s when you give it to people. That kind of love is alive. It speaks. It gives direction. It has within it all the answers to the universe. If you focus in on that love and look deeply into the heart of it, you will find the living God. I have spent thousands of hours analyzing the love I feel for my children and in doing so, I have developed a relationship of sorts with the heart of love. I have a knowing sense of His existence wherever I go. I know immediately when a thought comes to me through Him (love) and I can set my senses to hear Him all the time.

When I look at a person I’ve never seen or met before, I just take a few moments and allow that love in my heart to attach itself to that new person. I might picture that person sad and lonely, or even crying. The moment I feel compassion for them, the love inside of me begins to join itself directly to that person’s heart. When that happens, I can see things in that person that I could never otherwise see in my normal state. The love that I have for that person begins to speak to me in a knowing sense. It’s not words. It’s just stuff being made known to me like I’ve always known it. It’s matter-of-fact stuff that always has to do with the person’s heart. I’ve learned to rely on love in any and all situations when I need direction or clarity. Love is not an emotion. Love is a person. His name is Yahweh!

When different situations arise in my life, I can look at them and know what my friend, Love, would do. I’ve spent many hours with Him. I know now how He thinks and I know how He responds. I can choose to see these situations through His eyes or through mine. It’s not that He is speaking to me and telling me what to do or how to respond to things. He just rubs off on me.

I am offended when people say stuff like, “God told me this” or “God said that,” especially when it’s something that my friend Love would never, ever say. They are married to “Hate” or “Apathy” and they’re attributing the personality characteristics of those two phonies to God Himself. How sad. Some things are just simply not in Love’s character. However, that doesn’t mean that He will show Himself in the same way to everyone.

One delightful woman once asked me to describe love so that she could have it. I thought for a while and I realized that He takes on a completely different form with each individual person. Though He is always the same, He is entirely unique with each and every person. In other words, the love I have for my daughter, Landin, doesn’t have a single thing to do with the love I have for Emma. Sidney’s (my second daughter) love looks nothing like Eva’s (youngest daughter). There is absolutely no way that I can describe Him to anyone. I can, however, describe Him as He pertains to one particular person, and yet when another person walks up and hears my description, they cannot believe it to be true for them. It’s different for them.

I get tickled when I hear Christians so intent upon proving to the world that God is in three persons. My experience has taught me that He is multi-dimensional. There are billions and trillions of entirely unique personalities within His nature, yet amazingly, they all come together and form one God. When you consider that He is different with each and every person on the face of the earth and you count how many people have walked this earth since its creation and then how many are yet to walk it, He is both beyond our understanding and intimately knowable at the same time.

When I look at a person and they ask me to tell them how God feels about them, I think it’s worthless and dry to respond by giving them the stock religious list of answers. Telling people “God loves you” means nothing any more. That’s a one-size-fits-all answer that is devoid of any individual capabilities. I can tell an individual exactly how God feels specifically for them because I can love them and then describe my feelings to them. The love I have for that specific person IS God’s heart for them and no one else! It is unique to only that person and it could not be said to just anyone. That is a thousand times better than just going through a list of Christian sayings that have been so overused that they are drained of their power.

The thing about Love is that it must have a recipient in order for it to ignite. Without someone to receive love, it’s not love. If I sent you to Mars and told you to be a loving person, you couldn’t because there are no people on Mars. When we understand this principal about love, it’s easy to misunderstand the kind of Love that God has put into our hearts. God’s Love is not a non-ignited love that is dead until it finds a recipient. He put an already-ignited Love within us. He put the Love that the Father has for the Son inside each of us. It’s living and active. It’s the essence of who He is. It is ignited and flowing and speaking and showing from the moment it enters our hearts. Giving Love to others is the only way I know how to experience God.

Love is not something that you can conjure up. The exciting thing about it is that it’s not an it. Love is a Him. If you just love one person and that’s all, you have the power withing you to ignite the entire world on fire with love. It starts with one person and it grows from there. This is not about judging yourself and feeling guilty for not being loving enough. This is about understanding that God is love. There is never a need to feel far away from Him. Just love someone and He is there.

When I say that I know Him and have a “relationship” with Him, I am saying that in a way that would be similar to a person who has endured multiple surgeries due to a severe burn might say that they “know suffering.” They’ve experienced suffering on so many levels that they have developed a relationship with it. One man who struggles with depression once told me that when he got home after a New Year’s Eve party, he was met with his “old friend, depression.” This is how I see a relationship with Love. The more you spend time in Him and with Him, the more familiar you become with Him. I think too many Christians spend their time seeking a human relationship with an invisible spiritual being and too little stepping up and loving others. For me, it’s simple. I don’t look into the spirit realm to find God. I look in my heart and I bring up love and there He is. Spending time with that fire of love in my heart IS spending time with God.

Christianity today does not know or understand this love, so they’ve never experienced its power. It’s just a concept to them. So they are left scrambling to find ways to sell their religion to the world. Their answer is to convince others that our life is being lived in a squeaky-clean manner as though that is what God is all about. Sadly, this is what Christianity has made Him out to be. He is a moralist and when He gets a hold of people, He makes them amazingly supernaturally ethical. They find deliverance from their habits and addictions. Blah, blah, blah. Christianity today analyzes the symptoms of love and then attempts to lovelessly reenact those symptoms out of duty. It becomes about performing the symptoms of love and not about loving.

I can hear it now. People are going to say, “What about Muslims who sincerely love,” or “What about an atheist who loves people. Are you saying they’ll go to heaven?” It’s sad and quite telling that this is the first question that modern day Christians ask me when they hear me talk about love, when if they were lovers of people themselves, their first question would have been, “What about Christians who believe in Jesus, but DON’T love?” We’ve been taught that anyone who loves others aside from Christianity doesn’t really love at all. I’m sorry, but I disagree. I do think, however, that anyone who loves aside from Christianity doesn’t have the privilege of knowing Love’s Name and Love’s history and Love’s promises and plans for the future. Knowing the Name of Love is hugely significant!

When Christ came (Love in the flesh), certain people immediately recognized Him. They knew love long before they knew His name. They recognized His voice before they knew His name. Jesus said “My sheep will recognize my voice.” He wasn’t saying that the people who had become His fans will follow Him and be His little groupies. He was literally saying that these people already knew Him before He even arrived. The only thing they didn’t know was His Name. Knowing Love’s Name is why we spread the Gospel to the world. It’s the final switch that clicks in a person’s heart and opens them to intimacy on levels they never thought possible. His Name is so powerful that those people who don’t even know His heart can simply call upon His Name and still be saved. Knowing His name is everything.

Some of you will hate this

I know many people who sincerely love others with all their heart. It’s just who they are and how they’ve decided to live their life. However, they adamantly reject the “Christian Jesus” they’ve been fed all their lives. They wouldn’t ever dare to call themselves a Christian. When they die and ultimately stand before Jesus, I honestly think they will recognize Him as their best friend whom they knew quite well while on earth. They just didn’t know His name. On the same note, I know many people who are all about Jesus. Their entire life is ‘Jesus-this’ and ‘Jesus-that.’ They are bona fide “Jesus Freaks.” However, when they die and stand before Jesus for the first time, I honestly think they are going to look at Him and say, “Excuse me, Sir, can you point me to where Jesus is.”

I don’t claim to know everything, but I do know this. When a person sincerely opens their heart to the idea of selflessly loving other people, they are opening their heart to Love Himself. I think that decision is a billion times more significant and powerful than rattling off a scripted sinner’s prayer with just the right theological ingredients in it to save your ass from Hell. You tell me which is better.

I also know this. If you don’t love, YOU DON’T KNOW GOD. And if you do love, YOU KNOW GOD AND YOU ARE KNOWN BY HIM. This is not about how a person receives salvation. This is about how a person can know God intimately. I do not spend my time analyzing whether a person’s love is real or not. That’s not my job. I do, however, spend a lot of time analyzing the love that exists in my heart and by doing that, I have found that I KNOW GOD. I personally have not found another way of knowing and experiencing Him personally.