Summary:
You get to know God the same way you come to know anyone you truly love: through steady attention over time. Scripture is not just something to learn from, but Someone to notice. As you read, asking what each passage reveals about God Himself, your understanding becomes more specific, and your relationship grows in clarity.
I Was Standing There Looking at Pickles
I remember standing in the grocery store staring at a wall of pickles, not because I really wanted any, but because I couldn’t remember which ones my wife liked. There were more options than I expected, different brands, different cuts, different flavors, and I stood there longer than I should have. Looking back, I realize this had nothing to do with pickles at all.
It had everything to do with attention.
When you love someone, you don’t just know general things about them. If you stay with someone long enough, you start learning the specifics, the small details most people overlook, because you’ve paid attention to what matters to them. You learn what they enjoy, what they avoid, what brings them peace, and what quietly frustrates them. You don’t learn these things through pressure or force, but through relationship.
And once you know, you don’t guess anymore.
You recognize.
The Question Most Believers Are Really Asking
How do you actually get to know God? How do you know Him in a real, personal way?
Not just learn about Him, not just collect information, but truly know Him in a way that feels real, steady, and relational?
That question matters more than most people realize. Not in an abstract way, but in how it quietly shapes everything else, how you read Scripture, how you pray, even how you think about your daily life with God.
You Already Understand How This Works
Think about someone close to you for a moment.
It could be your spouse, your child, or a close friend. Whoever came to mind, you don’t just know surface-level facts about them. You know their preferences, their patterns, their reactions, and the things that matter to them in ways that you didn’t learn all at once.
That knowledge came through attention over time. Not forced, just steady presence and attention with someone you genuinely care about.
You learned them by being with them, listening, noticing, and remembering, and eventually those small observations became something deeper. They became recognition.
Scripture Is Where God Makes Himself Known
This is where things tend to shift, usually without people noticing it at first.
We open the Bible looking for answers, direction, or something to apply, and while those things matter, they are not the starting point. Scripture is not first a manual for living. It is God revealing Himself.
From the beginning, humanity was created for fellowship with God, not just awareness of Him, and the story of Scripture is God’s ongoing work to restore that relationship.
So when you read the Bible, you are not just gathering information, or looking for guidance, or even comfort.
You are being shown a Person.
One Question Changes Everything
If you want to grow in knowing God, you don’t need a complicated system, you need a consistent question.
What does this show me about God?
When you begin reading Scripture with this question first, your focus shifts. Instead of immediately moving to yourself and your problems or questions about your life, your attention settles on Him, and that changes how you see everything you read.
Even familiar passages start to open up in new ways, because you’re no longer just asking what to do.
You’re asking who He is.
What Happens Over Time as You Learn to Know God
At first, this may feel simple. Maybe even too simple.
But over time, something begins to build.
You start noticing patterns in how God speaks and responds, what He seems to value, and how He consistently relates to His people. You begin to see His patience in places you overlooked before, His consistency across different books of the Bible, and His faithfulness even when people are not.
And as in any close relationship, without forcing it, your understanding starts becoming more specific.
Not vague, and not abstract the way it can feel at first, but grounded enough that you begin to recognize Him when you see Him.
Scripture Example: Seeing God Clearly
Consider this:
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
(Psalm 103:8)
That’s not just a comforting statement.
It’s a clear description of who God is.
When you slow down enough to notice it, you begin to understand something specific about Him, that His patience is not occasional, His mercy is not reluctant, and His love is not unstable. Then, as you continue reading Scripture, you start seeing that same character expressed again and again in different situations.
That’s how recognition forms.
This Is How Relationship with God Grows
You don’t build a relationship with someone through a single conversation, and you don’t come to know God through a single reading. Relationship grows through repeated exposure, steady attention, and a willingness to keep showing up even when you don’t feel like you’re seeing everything clearly yet.
The same is true here.
When you begin reading this way, you start noticing things you missed before. Not all at once, but enough that certain patterns begin to stand out, and before long, you realize you’re remembering what keeps showing up. Then one day you’re reading a passage and something feels familiar, not because you’ve memorized it, but because you recognize Him in it.
And it doesn’t stay on the page. You find yourself in a situation later, maybe a conversation, maybe a decision you didn’t expect to have to make, and something in you pauses for a moment. Not because you’re trying to be spiritual, but because you’ve seen this before. You start to think, almost instinctively, this is the kind of moment where God is patient… where He tells the truth… where He doesn’t rush.
You didn’t plan that. You didn’t force it. You recognized it.
You already know what that feels like, you do this now with the person you thought about at the beginning of this article. You look at something in the store and think “they would love this” or you pick up something for them you know they love, because you know them.
This Is Not About Earning Closeness
It’s important to slow down here and be clear about something that often gets misunderstood.
You are not learning God in order to earn relationship with Him. You are learning Him because that relationship has already been restored through Christ. Your place with Him is not something you achieve through effort, but something you live within as you grow. Think of it like a friendship, it already exists. You’re learning that person because of the relationship, not in order to create it.
Identity comes first.
Then understanding follows, as a response to grace, not a requirement for it.
Formation: A Simple Way to Start
You don’t need to overhaul everything.
Start small and stay consistent.
The next time you open Scripture, take a short passage and read it slowly, resisting the urge to rush ahead. Ask one question and sit with it long enough to notice what stands out.
What does this show me about God?
Write it down if it helps.
Then carry that with you through the day, not as a task to complete, but as something to remember.
Key Takeaways
- You already understand how relationships grow through observation and attention over time
- Scripture reveals who God is, not just what to do
- Asking one consistent question when reading scripture builds clarity: What does this show me about God?
- Specific knowledge of a person leads to real recognition
- This is relationship, not performance
Closing Encouragement
You don’t need to rush this process or try to force clarity faster than it comes.
You’re not behind.
You’re learning a Person, not completing a system, and that kind of knowing takes time because it’s meant to. As you keep returning to Scripture with this posture, paying attention instead of just searching for answers, you’ll begin to recognize God more clearly than you did before.
And that recognition is where relationship deepens.
Stay with it.
Christ reigns. Christ restores. Christ will return.
Longing for Christ, learning to wait faithfully.
Your brother in Christ,
Duane