I Wanted to Know Him

I don’t remember the sermon. I don’t remember the songs we sang. What I remember is staying late after the service, talking with Danielle and Sandra while most everyone else had already gone home.

I remember feeling heavy. I’d spent years learning the right answers, attending Bible studies, getting a religion degree in college, working in churches, and doing all the things a good Christian was supposed to do. But somewhere in that conversation, I admitted what I had been carrying: I knew a lot about God, but I wanted to know Him. Not as a subject to study, but as a friend to walk with.

That night I took communion with a gratitude I had never felt before. What I know is that something shifted. The years that followed were different from the years that came before. My faith stopped being primarily about learning facts and became a relationship I wanted to cultivate every day.

I keep coming back to that younger version of me sitting there with Danielle and Sandra, trying so hard to “get it right.” I wonder what Paul would have prayed over her in that moment.

What strikes me in Colossians 1:9 is that Paul doesn’t tell the Colossians to work harder to figure God out. He prays that God would fill them with the knowledge of His will through the wisdom and understanding the Spirit gives.

That means the knowledge is a gift before it becomes a responsibility.

My younger self was approaching faith as something to master. Paul’s prayer suggests that knowing God’s will begins with receiving from the Holy Spirit, not merely accumulating information. The goal isn’t becoming an expert on God. The goal is becoming the kind of person who can recognize His leading and walk with Him.

That same shift from striving to receiving is what I see so clearly in my own backyard.

My garden looked very different a few weeks ago after a hailstorm rolled through. Leaves were shredded, stems were bent, and everything looked like it had taken a step backward before it started growing again.

But the roots were already there, doing work I had never earned and never noticed.

Right now, my garden doesn’t look finished. The parsley and basil are thriving, but the rosemary is still struggling to come back. The zucchini is slowly pushing out new leaves, and the beans and tomatoes are growing, even if they’re not as tall as I wish they were by now.

Most mornings start the same way: checking the plants, noticing what’s changed, and dragging out the hose again. With the dry weather and constant wind, missing a watering isn’t really an option. Growth is happening, but it isn’t dramatic. It’s the kind that comes from showing up day after day and paying attention.

This Week
Take ten minutes with no agenda except to be with Jesus. No checklist. No study plan. No pressure to learn something new. Just pay attention. Talk to Him. Listen. And notice what grows when relationship becomes more important than information.

A Prayer
God, thank You for the work You do beneath what I can see. When life looks shaken or unfinished, remind me that You are still forming something deeper in me.

Help me to release the need to control what only Your Spirit can grow, and instead stay attentive and willing to respond to what You are doing day by day. Teach me to show up faithfully, even when I don’t see the full story yet.

Hold me steady in what You’ve already begun, and keep shaping me by Your grace, one quiet layer at a time.

Amen.