Season 2, Episode 1
I’d like to begin this first post for 2025 by sharing something personally significant between God and me that took place in 1963, when I was twenty-one … and has never left me.
I had recently left my job as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer and entered full-time Bible College. That was a major step, just one year after gaining my engineering licence, yet I knew God had led me into it.
One night as I was praying alone in my room at the college and feeling particularly close to God, I asked Him to show me what the rest of my life would be like. That was such a sublime moment, and I felt like I only needed to ask and He would move aside the veil to show me the path my life would take from then on.
Yet, no sooner did I make that clear request to God than His reply came back with equal clarity. Though not as I had hoped or expected. Instead of showing me the future, He gave me one simple promise: that He would always shine a light on the next place where my foot was to tread … and that was all. At the same time, I saw myself walking along, surrounded by darkness and unable to see anything ahead of me … except for a light shining on that one place where I was to take my next step.
That’s not what I’d been hoping for, yet it was exactly what I needed. In placing Himself between me and my future, God was saying: “That's all you need to know. Trust me and follow me.” Now, as I look back over all those years, it thrills me to be able to say, that's just how it's been!
As I share with you in these regular posts, I will also be sharing more such experiences that are like a thread running through my life and going back, not only to that night 62 years ago, but even further – to the Billy Graham Crusade of 1959 when I was 17 and experienced the personal reality of Jesus for the first time.* As I look all the way back to that unexpected and wonderful experience that changed my life forever, I see the path along which God has led me ever since. Never could I have known – never could I have guessed – the ways along which He would lead me or the places, situations and experiences He would bring me into.
From my own lived experience, throughout those years and right up to the present time, I can categorically say that there is absolutely nothing more wonderful than knowing God for who He really is, making your life all about Him, and seeking only to do His will … whatever your age or your stage of life. This wonderful life for which we were created is more thrilling and fulfilling to me right now than it has ever been!
It’s common for people my age to live in the past. But I can’t do that, because my life with God is not over yet … nor will it ever be. Just as He promised 62 years ago, He will keep on leading me one step at a time, until the day when my next step will take me into that wonderful place where I will be with Him forever. That’s not exclusive to me by any means, but it is intensely personal. And it will be for you too, if you choose to walk with Him.
As I shared in the first of these posts (and in my first podcast episode), becoming a new Christian at 17 projected me into a subculture that I had never before experienced – despite having a church background and believing in God’s existence. Over a short space of time I got to know people who, like me, had been ‘born-again’ and knew Jesus just like I had come to know Him. Desirable though that was, there is also a tendency in such a setting for things to become very prescriptive and defined in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ kind of way.
But God is not like that. He is the Creator! It is His nature to create, and He endlessly does so … according to His will. Just think of the incredible diversity in the natural Creation alone. Everything God makes is so wonderfully designed to the finest detail. Every plant, every creature … everything! All of Creation – animate and inanimate – is bursting with evidence of His creativity!
Many there are in these days who see themselves as creative – or, to further emphasise the point, they freely refer to themselves as creatives. Not a big deal of itself – but I do want to make the point that no human is a true creator. The best anyone can do is to work with what God has created. True creativity resides with God alone – who made everything out of nothing … simply by speaking the words.
Which brings me back to us – you, me and every other human on the face of the earth. Not humanity en masse, because the way we are created is way more personal than that. Jesus made that point well when He said, “… the very hairs of your head are numbered”. Though He was addressing a crowd, His words were spoken to each individual in that crowd. God knows and sees you as a unique creation – known by Him right down to the finest individual detail.
Consider that well-known fact that each of us has a unique fingerprint. Even though I know that’s true, it is hard to believe that there are as many unique variations of such a simple-looking pattern as there are people on earth! Yet, that alone is but one small example of the wonderful reality that we are not ‘cookie-cutter’ creations. Even though we are all made in the image of God, each of us is an individual creation.
That’s a truth not meant to be understood by puny human minds, but to simply be embraced by believing human hearts.
I often talk about how every one of us was created to live in an intensely personal relationship with God – and when I was a young Christian people used to say: “There’s a God-sized hole inside every human being that only He can fill”. Which is a great way of putting it. But it is just as true to also say, there is a you-sized hole in the heart of God, that only you can fill!
Some might find that unsettling. Even offensive. “Are you telling me that God is incomplete without me?” Well yes, I am. By His own choice, God has chosen to be incomplete without you. So does that mean that God is not complete … dare I say, not perfect? Isn’t He the One who has everything? Yes and yes. But this is not about theology. It is about the very essence of God. He is Love in all its wonderful perfection!
God loves because He is love – and will continually do whatever He can to bring you into a love relationship with Him. That's why Jesus died for you.
For as long as I can remember, it’s been common for preachers of the Gospel to say: “If you had been the only person alive on earth, Jesus would have died for you.” Even though statements like that can come across as nothing more than attention-grabbing catchphrases, this one is undeniably true.
God's love for us was first manifested in the way He created our forefather Adam in His own image. Then after Adam fell God’s undying love was the motivating force behind His relentless pursuit of Adam’s race – right up to that ultimate expression of His love that many of us may try to comprehend, but none of us truly can. God the Father sent His son Jesus to suffer horribly and to die in agony.
How casually some Christians recite that best known of Bible verses: “God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son…”. Whenever you say, read, or even think, those words, please don't think of ‘the world’ in a generic sense. That sacrifice of sacrifices was not made for a mass of people spread around the globe over succeeding generations. God has never, ever, looked at this world and its people in that way. He always sees individuals, created by Him to know and love Him, and for whom He sacrificed His Son.
There's a beautiful verse in the Bible describing how God’s eyes “range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him”. He is constantly scanning the world, searching for those who are searching for Him. He is constantly seeking such people whose hearts are oriented towards Him. Imagine holding a mirror up to the sun, at just the right angle so that it would reflect the sun’s rays straight back to it. That’s what it’s like, as God’s eyes roam to and fro throughout the whole earth, in His search for people whose hearts are inclined toward Him. The moment His gaze finds such a heart (your heart, hopefully) that is pointing back at Him, He immediately recognises that person who is seeking Him. That’s the moment when His quest for you meets your quest for Him.
When God first touched my heart at the age of 17, I understand nothing of what had taken place and could not have explained it to anybody. Yet it was the result of God seeing in me a heart that was searching for Him, and when His heart touched mine, my heart was changed!
That's how personal God is with everyone who seeks Him and responds to Him. He loves you with a desire you cannot comprehend. But not in a way that just lumps you in with everyone else – like one more convert to be added to the bunch, or another name on the church membership list! God is not like that. He is the Living God who loves you with an everlasting love … intensely and personally.
That has continued to be my own personal experience from the day He came into my life, gave me His gift of Eternal Life and changed me from the inside. It was thrilling when I first came to know and experience God like that – but the greatest joy of my life is that my personal experience of God now is beyond anything I have ever known with Him. Not because it has not been wonderful since my first encounter with Him in 1959, but because a personal love relationship is like that. It grows deeper and richer every day …every moment! Such is the nature of God – and such is the nature of true intimacy with Him.
Another thing I cannot comprehend is how God is able give all of Himself to me when He also has countless other people to likewise give Himself to. Yet, while my mind can’t grasp it, I already know the answer. He is able to give Himself to all those who seek Him, all of the time, because He is the Living God, Creator of the Universe … who is Love! He does not need to divide Himself – His love, His time, His attention, His power, into tiny fragments so that everybody who wants a piece of Him will at least get something. When you give all of yourself to God, He always responds by giving all of Himself to you.
Pouring out His heart to His disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus said: “…you did not choose me, but I chose you…”. They could not have chosen to follow Jesus had He not first chosen them to be His followers. God knows those who are seeking Him – and it is He who makes the first move, calling you to follow Him. Whenever He does that, it is because His seeking eyes have found someone whose heart is seeking Him. You may be completely unaware that something like that is going to happen – and you may have no idea what it even looks like. But when it does happen – as it did for me 66 years ago – the only thing to do is take hold of God … and give and give and give of yourself to Him for the rest of your life. Do that, and there is no doubt that He, in turn, will never cease giving and giving and giving of Himself to you. When your relationship with God is like that, how can there be any doubt that He will continually guide your steps?
When God spoke to me that night at Bible College – in reply to my prayer about my future – He related it the basic fact that in all sorts of ways our lives consist of many single steps. We are physically designed to walk. He has given us legs and feet and we progress by taking one step at a time. As the old saying goes: ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step’.
God wants to be your Guide step-by-step throughout your life. The Holy Spirit, who is God Himself, is not only the one who brings you to God, who comes to dwell inside you, who fills you with His power. He is also the one who is eager to lead you through your life, one step at a time. And all you need to do is keep surrendering yourself to Him in joyful abandonment, each step of the way. But He will never compel you.
Anyone who comes to God, must do so of their own accord – and those who remain with Him must likewise do so of their own choice. He is not interested in conscripts … or prisoners! He has given you a free will, which He will always honour. But His deepest desire towards you is that you and He will live in the most beautiful love relationship forever – beginning in this life, then continuing on into Eternity, where you will you be forever free from all the limitations and temptations of this earthly life!
Speaking of which, I am personally thankful that I'm still here in this mortal body, in this world. Not because I prefer it to the place Jesus has prepared for me – which is far, more preferable – but because of the privilege I have to live out my love for Him in the midst my own human weaknesses, and in an environment where “the world, the flesh and the devil” so often appear to have the upper hand. How wonderful it is to know how much I need Him constantly and how passionately He wants to be glorified in my life, right here, right now!
The apostle Paul presented such a clear picture of how we are to live in this world when he wrote: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”
God’s response to me when I was 21 is His way for you too. I urge you to make your life about Him alone. He is the living God, whose love and power are beyond anything you can ask or think. Walk step-by-step with Him and you will lack nothing. As you keep walking with Him, you will also experience the joy of gazing back over all the way you’ve come – like looking back along a road on which you have travelled – and finding yourself saying: “Isn't that incredible? God has led me and walked with me all the way!”
You may not yet know all the ways in which God wants to be glorified in and through your life, and you may yet have more to discover about His will for you. But what you do know is that everything you will ever need at every point of your journey with Him will always be revealed to you, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, and step-by-step.
This God is the living God, who longs for you to know Him and to walk with Him as you let Him guide your steps, all the way, until the day when your next step brings you to the gate of Heaven!
[*See my first blog post: Loving God … Your Ultimate Attainment]