Guest Blog by Maureen Small
“You can’t see God. You can’t touch God. So how do you surrender your life to someone you can’t see or touch?” a young man asked me recently. It’s a great question. How do you trust your life to someone you can’t see?
Trust comes from knowing that the person you are putting your faith in is worthy of trust. We learn to trust them as we get to know who they really are. The same is true of God; when you know His character, you know you can trust Him.
It seems easier to get to know someone you can see and touch. You can have conversations, see how they react in different situations, and learn if they follow through in what they say they will do. It may seem more difficult to get to know God, but you can do it.
As I told the young man seeking answers, trusting God with your life starts with knowing God’s character, and knowing God’s character comes from reading His word, the Bible. In the Bible we learn who God is. He is good, loving, merciful, and trustworthy. Sometimes we put our trust in a person or organization not because we have personally met them, but because they have a good reputation. In the Bible we see how God answered other people’s prayers, how He rescued them, how He provided for them, and how He loved them. We can see that God is trustworthy through what we learn from other’s experiences with Him.
But we don’t have to just rely on other people’s relationships with God to know His character. God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us, and we develop that relationship the same way we develop any relationship in our lives: by spending time with Him. Talk to God. Listen to God. (For help with that, click here.)
God isn’t a mysterious, unknowable “being” floating around out there somewhere, demanding that we surrender our lives to Him. He knows you personally, and He wants a personal relationship with you. That relationship is made possible through the death and resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus. Read more about that in the book of John in the Bible.
Every day we can each grow closer to God through spending time with Him, and as we do, we will know His good character more and more. As we learn about Him, we learn of His love for us, and we love Him in return. It becomes easier and easier to trust Him with every area of our lives as we grow into a deeper friendship with Him, and as we see His faithfulness playing out in our lives.
How can you surrender your life to a God you can’t see? By knowing His character, you can trust Him with your life. If you have never surrendered your life to God, I encourage you to do so. If you have surrendered to God in the past, I encourage you to continue to get to know Him and daily surrender your life to him.