I took a little break from our series “Building a Relationship With God” partly because other things came to me that I felt I needed to write about and partly because I was waiting for inspiration to hit me again.  Well God has inspired me again so lets continue with part 5 of our series.

In the past few articles of our series, we explored the topics of talking to God, hearing God talk to us, and looking for the signs God gives us in our lives.  Now let’s discuss how we know and learn the word of God or, in other words, what He has already told us.

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In parts 1 – 3 of our series “Building a Relationship with God”, we have taken a look at how to start to talk to God (through prayer) and how to start to listen for God (through mediation).  Now let’s take a look at how God gives us signs that He is all around us.

When I tell some people the story about what had happened to me a few months ago they look at me as if I’ve absolutely lost my mind.  As a matter of fact, at the time, I thought I might have been a little off my rocker and kept this to myself for a while.  But in an article that I previously posted called God Helps Ease Our Concerns, I tell the story of how one night I was really feeling quite all alone.  That night I asked God to give me a sign that everything was going to be okay.  This is what I wrote in that article:

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I once read the following:

“Prayer is when you talk to God; mediation is when you listen to God.”

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I have had some people ask me how does one reconcile the seemingly conflicting views that God has a plan for us while we, as people, have free will and can choose to do whatever it is we want to do with our lives.

When it comes to faith related issues, there are many questions that we could spend a considerable amount of time exploring such as: why do bad things happen to good people, why is there war, why is there sickness…?  However, in the instant case, there does seem to be a considerable conflict between the two ideas in question.

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Many people ask the question: “What is prayer?” or “How do you pray?”

When I was growing up praying seemed to be governed by rules and rituals. There were specific prayers that you were supposed to memorize and we were supposed to say certain prayers at certain times. I don’t think I ever really knew what some of those prayers were saying – but you said them anyway.

To me praying seemed to be very impersonal. I prayed because I was told that is what I was supposed to do. I never felt like I was really talking to God – especially about me. I never felt I was getting anything out of praying other than the fact that I was “doing my duty”. And so, after a while, I stopped praying.

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