GROWING CLOSER TO GOD

Meet with God

To crave God is to seek Him. To desire, God is to do whatever it takes to be close to Him. Therefore, if we want to show God that He is the one true craving we need in this life, He must be our top priority. This means that we must put Him first in everything that we do.

Let God be the first person you speak to when you wake up. Do your morning devotions as your commitment to putting God first. At the same time, whenever you feel sad, happy, lonely, overwhelmed with joy—whatever emotion you feel, choose to meet with God. It does not matter if your heart is heavy or full. Either way, decide to meet with God. Crave an encounter with God, even amid frustration or as you utter praise and adoration.

Pray the Psalms

When we are overwhelmed with joy, we can declare unto God: “I will praise you, O Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders” (Ps. 9:1). Whenever we are feeling deep sorrow, we can likewise pray the words of the psalmist: “My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?” (Ps. 22:1). Notice that this last psalm was also the one that Jesus prayed on the cross, just before his death (Mt. 27:46).

Praying the psalms not only allows us to express our emotions but also allows our emotions to be shaped by the psalms.xxv Instead of allowing our negative emotions to bring us away from God, praying the psalms helps us become reoriented to God. It allows us to crave for God more and more.

Pray Without Ceasing

Prayer is the way we communicate with God. To grow closer to God, we must build a good prayer life. Romans 8:26 tells us that God’s Spirit helps us in our times of struggle, for even if we do not know what to pray for, the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. This means that everything can be a form of prayer. Prayer does not only constitute verbal utterances; prayer can also be in the form of a song, a melody, or any heartfelt action. This is what Paul meant when he wrote to the Romans: pray without ceasing. Everything we do can be a prayer; we do not need to use words.