Who is God to You?

Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”

[The Note: This post is a cluster of thoughts I am untangling as coherently as I can.]

Today’s entry, according to me, was to be a continuation of last week’s entry. However, while on Bible Book Club, looking at 2 Chronicles 16:11-14, the question “Who is God to you?” came to mind. What is Bible Book Club, you may ask? Well, it’s a beautiful ministry run by some amazing women of God. Being a part of this community has done a lot for me on my journey, which could be another entry in and of itself. 

Onto today’s entry…

Let’s start with a quick, snappy summary of the chapter. Asa didn’t seek God when Baasha came up against him; instead, he sought help from ‘man’. Having done this, Hanani, a prophet, checks him for what he has done; he’s angry with Hanani for telling him the truth, and throws him in prison. In the 39th year of his reign, he got a disease in his feet which was severe, and again, he sought ‘man’ instead of God, and died in the 41st year of his reign. 

Asa knew God, what God could do, and what God was capable of. During his reign, there were 35 years of no war. Asa got rid of all abominable idols because he received a word from Oded, the prophet. I’ll say that he knew God, of course, I can’t say to what extent, but the fact that he also sought God, and verse 17 of chapter 15 tells us that his heart was loyal all his days, I’ll say that yes, he knew God. 

However, when you move from seeking God to forsaking Him and seeking man instead, even when you’re unable to move, it becomes questionable. 

One of the sisters on Bible Book Club pointed out that Asa followed in his father's footsteps, forming a treaty with the King of Syria, our first account of him not seeking God. In my opinion, this move was born out of fear, and this trajectory took him further away from God. 

Who was God to Asa? Could we say that the loyalty Asa had to God was because there had not been any wars? Thus, making God his business partner, whom he didn’t have much faith in, so ran as soon as he felt the ship was sinking? Could we say that at one point, Asa saw God as God, capable of anything? Could we also say that Asa had no true faith and was not firmly rooted in God? We could do a deep dive looking through chapters 14 - 16 of 2 Chronicles to formulate more questions and make assumptions about how we believe Asa viewed God. 

When Asa got the disease in his feet, you would have thought that he would turn to God and say, "Father, forgive me. You are the Greatest physician, and there is none like you." Instead, our friend Asa went and sought help from ‘man’. It’s as though he was saying, "God is not capable of handling this for me, so let me handle it myself." In these situations, we begin to see who God is to an individual. 

God can either become a person’s everything, be seen as a transactional figure, or mean nothing to a person. Though this can be the case, God doesn’t change at all; He remains unchanged. He simply wants us to see Him for who He is: loving, caring, just, the only wise God, creator of the universe, just to list a few characteristics. This is only a snapshot of who God is, and He will never change. I believe that how we view God at any given point reflects our heart’s posture. I feel our proximity, how close we feel to God, may impact how easily we find it to approach him. If we think we are at a distance, approaching Him may be extremely challenging. But isn’t that the best time to go before Him? 

I don’t think any of us can say that we find it challenging to go to God when we do the things that are pleasing to Him. If we do not do anything that we are aware of, and we feel close to Him and no one has put us in check, we’ll find that we go to Him with all our cares, and celebrations.

How do we get to know Him?

Who is God to You? Is God worthy of your praises? Is He a tyrant from which you have to hide your face? Is He just and will respond accordingly? Is He forgiving and will be waiting for us to fix up to return to Him?

I fell ill at the end of April, and was off work for 3 weeks. During this time, I was in my Bible near enough EVERY DAY. I spent time reading His word, digging deeper, breaking things down, and studying His word to get closer to Him. It was the most beautiful time I have spent with my Loving Father in Heaven. Before this, I was getting to know Him better and was more comfortable approaching Him. However, during sickness, from that period to now, there was a shift in me. I can’t put into words who God is to me, but I can tell you that I trust Him with my everything. This blog, I take to Him, often. If I slip up, I go right back to Him and I tell Him I am sorry, asking Him to cleanse my heart. Wash me and make me whiter than snow. Draw me close to You. 

Had I not been finding my feet. Had I not started to change my foundations, ensuring that my foundation is in Him, my response would not have been this way. 

When my work contract was drawing to a close, it was said to me, “You don’t seem stressed at all”, and I had to say, “I know the God that I serve”. When I went for interviews, I reminded myself that His word said to be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:6), and talking to Him, I would say Lord, You did not give me the spirit of fear, but of power, of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). I knew that God would come through for me. I didn’t want my character to change because of stress, which would show that I don’t trust the God I tell others I serve. 

I’ll close with the verse for today, Psalm 46:10, but the first part, “Be still and know that I am God”. I heard this so many times during the first week I was off work between April and May. This was the first time, in 2 years, that I had fallen ill and intentionally drawn closer to God. In 2023, I was grounded for the first time, not because of my feet as with Asa, but because of a pain better managed in a horizontal state. Nevertheless, during this period, I could only go to church, to the house of the Lord. During this moment, I returned to God, and this was meant to be the original entry for today, my in and out of church life. My heart turned away from Him, and I went to seek everything else; I didn’t seek His face. 2024, a lengthy recovery period, and I was reading my Bible, attending devotions, and attending Bible Book Club, but it was nothing like this time around. This journey, getting to this point, has been an interesting one. 

This time round, I was deep in my Word. I told my mum that at church, they would possibly tell me to stop reading my Bible. The more I read, the more my eyes opened. My prayers changed, my understanding of God changed. Now I’m at a point where I am seeing His hands in everything, wondering why I left Him in the past. The way He has been coming through for me, had I KNOWN Him properly back in the days, things would have been different now. If my relationship with Him wasn’t based on what I saw through others, I would have approached Him differently if I had known Him for myself. 

Who God is to you determines how you approach and worship Him, and your heart posture. 

I implore you today to seek His face with humility. Let His word be your guide. Ask Him for the ability to see, hear, and understand His voice spiritually. Spend intimate time with Him and strengthen your relationship with Him. 

Have a blessed rest of your week, and we’ll be back next week. 

Thank you for being here, friend. 

God bless. 

Careen.