How do You Experience God in Your Life?

With the hustle and bustle going on around us, we may feel like God is far away and not really interested in our lives. We may even think He doesn’t intervene in our lives. However, if you would pay attention, you would experience God in your life and in your daily affairs.

God is interested in you; God is working in your life. Experiencing God is easier than you think. Pay attention and look around, and consider whether things happen coincidentally or are performed on purpose by a purposeful God.

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

Romans 1:20 (NLT)

God’s word says we have no excuse for not acknowledging His intervention in our lives. We can experience God in our lives every day. He is at work, but mostly we do not see it.

We can experience God without recognizing it

It is possible that God is moving in our lives without us seeing it. We rarely recognize the work of God in our lives. But that we don’t see it doesn’t mean God is not at work.

Different reasons can cause we don’t recognize God’s work in our daily lives:

• Ignorance: we don’t know we can experience God for ourselves.
• Being occupied: we are too busy to pay attention.
• Self-centeredness: we think we did it ourselves.
• Stubbornness: we don’t want to acknowledge God is the one in action.
• Spiritual blindness: we focus on the physical.
• Unbelief: we do not believe that God acted (as a believer?—yes, it is possible for believers to not believe).

Do you think that experiencing God is only for special people? Well, it is not! It is easier than you think. Whether or not we see it, there are various ways we can experience the presence of God in our daily lives.

What is the best way to experience God in your life?

God is omnipotent. He can do what He wants, when he wants, and how he wants. There is, therefore, no ‘trick’ to experience God. He can manifest Himself differently each time. The signs of God’s presence in our lives are unique.

When we read the gospels, we see Lord Jesus healing people differently each time. Some simply get a word, others get an assignment, and in other instances, Jesus Himself takes action to heal people.

We ourselves are also unique. There are no two people on planet Earth the same. God deals differently with each of us, as He knows us by name and knows each of us inside and out.

There is, therefore, no prescription as to the best way to experience God in your life. God can use anything and anyone to reach out to you. Anything. Anyone. Anytime. 

So then, how can we know God is at work and how can we experience Him in our very day lives? We can pray for discernment, worship Him, read His Word, and meditate on His Word. All of these are ways of communicating and building a relationship with God.

The same as with our human relationships, it is with God. The more time we spent with Him, the better we get to know Him, and the better we can understand His dealings. We can then experience Him in our lives more easily when we open up to Him.

It is also important to put away distractions (things and people that distract us) and set time apart for fellowship with God. The more you do this, the easier it gets to experience Him. You will experience Him when you are asking for it and randomly, without your request. As God doesn’t depend on our wishes but on His will.

Signs of God’s presence

As much as each of God’s dealings with us is unique, we can also recognize patterns. We may have similar experiences and see God at work in our daily lives.

Here is a list of examples of how to experience God in your life.

Experiencing God when you are in need

God provides what we need.

Have you ever experienced people who gave you exactly what you needed? Provisions, money, clothes, a job, a place to stay, etcetera? That was God at work. He provided what you desperately needed. You were experiencing God, but may not have recognized it. Those gifts from people around you are usually exactly right and exactly on time.

You may also have provided to people what they required without knowing their needs. You gave it to them based on a feeling or a thought and acted on it. That is how God works.

Experiencing God in encouraging words

God can speak to you through others, and to others through you. God can use other people to speak encouraging words to us or to provide warnings or insights. Anything God wants you to know, He can convey to you via others. God can use unbelievers, as He isn’t limited to Christians when He wants to reach out to you.

Receiving encouraging words in times of need is truly heartening. Even though it is people speaking, in reality, you are experiencing God. It is indeed possible to experience God here on earth. It is possible to hear His voice.

Experiencing God in life-saving deliverances

So often in life, God delivers us from disasters, but we don’t even recognize it was He who delivered us. We may think it was luck or coincidence. God loves us too much to leave our lives to chance.

Think of situations like a car speeding on the highway that just missed you, an airplane landing with just one working engine, a contagious disease that didn’t touch you alone, the negative rumor spread about you that your boss didn’t believe, etc.

In all situations, it is God who delivers us, not chance, luck, or the surrounding people. Anytime we escape tragedy, we are experiencing God without really understanding what exactly we are undergoing. We can take time to glorify God each time we are rescued from a disaster, as it is He who worked it out in our lives.

Why does God deliver us? Psalm 50 verse 15 (NKJV) makes that clear:

“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.”

Experiencing God in His promptings to pray

God often prompts us to pray. To pray for a specific situation, for ourselves, or for others, etc. You may have experienced this many times, but may not have noticed it. Whether we ‘feel’ it or not, God prompts us to pray. It is one of His ways to let us experience Him so we can do His will.

Sometimes you recognize the urge to pray and do it. And at other times, you neglect it and go on with your daily affairs. However, God has a reason to prompt you. He wants you to pray. He pressures you to pray so that He can do His will through you. Through prayer, he wants you to experience Him.

Experiencing God in prayer promptings is quite common. And when you obey the prompting, you will see God at work. The Holy Spirit often prompted even Lord Jesus to pray or do things (e.g. in Matthew 4:1).  

When you recognize the prompt to pray, it is important to give God the credit. He is the vine; we are the branches, and without Him we cannot bear fruit (John 15:5).

Experiencing God in His promptings to speak

Sometimes God prompts you to speak to someone about what you have prayed for. In those instances, He wants that person to know that you prayed. This is another way of experiencing God. He wants that person to know that He cares and knows the situation and that He has engaged people to pray for it.

When we receive a godly word from someone about something they have no idea about, we experience the depth of God’s love, care, protection, and saving work for us.

Experiencing God in your despair

God has so many ways to let us experience Him because He wants us to know He is there, and cares for us, and loves us. He isn’t limited to our ways of experiencing things, neither is He limited to use so-called spiritual ways of experiencing Him. He can use very human tools to reach us. Nothing is impossible for God.

Some years back, my husband and I found ourselves in heavy turbulence, without a sign of improvement. It was then, in our moment of despair, that we started receiving emails from an unknown sender. Those emails always contained encouraging words and pointed to God. Sometimes it was just a brief encouragement, and at other times it was an email full. There were days we received just one email, and on the tougher days, we would receive several emails spread throughout the day.

One of those emails, it said: “out of a great mess, God can make greatness”. Well, we truly found ourselves in a great mess. These emails provided us with the courage to go on and know that God had not forgotten us. We were experiencing God in our ‘inbox’.

Together, we experience God in our lives

God speaks in various ways to and through us. God intervenes in our lives through many channels.

The earth and its fullness are at God’s disposal; He can use anything and anyone He wants to intervene in our lives. You can experience God every day of your life, every moment of the day. Just open your eyes and see beyond the natural. You will recognize God in so many ways. He is not far away; He is close to you.

A major way we encounter God and truly get to know Him is together. Together with all His children, we can get to know the beauty of His presence. We experience God through others, and others experience God through us. That is how God manifests Himself. That is what Ephesians 3 verse 18 and 19 means:

“May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

If you want to experience God daily in your life, allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and prompt you. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you to reach out to others. And ask the Holy Spirit to let you truly see and know and understand when God is moving in your life.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

John 14:26 (NKJV)

You need your helper, the Holy Spirit, to teach you, to guide you, and to prompt you.

Ask Him, He will do it.

Let’s pray

Thank You, Lord, for revealing Yourself to me daily. I may not have recognized it until now, but You were there each time I experienced deliverance.

Thank You that I can experience You in my life through so many situations, through others, and through promptings. I will not be ignorant anymore about your ways of reaching out to me. Help me see when You interfere in my life and when You save me, provide for me, and send me comfort. I just want to say thank You.

Open my eyes, Lord, so that I can recognize you in every situation. Holy Spirit, help me to truly see God at work in my life. Guide me to be a blessing to others. Use me. Prompt me.

In Jesus’ Name. Amen.