The new year invites opportunity for a fresh start, new beginnings, a new way to grow. Many are looking to do things better not only with exercise and diet but with organization and relationships. People are looking for change and improvement in different areas of their life, including their life with God. In the past few months, many have expressed to me their desire to know and understand God and His word. Everyone is looking for the magic plan that will help them grow in their knowledge of God and His Word. The biggest question is how?

I have been there. For so many years I had sought this same growth. How do I grow in my relationship with God? Coming to know Jesus as my Savior at an early age, I felt spurts of growth through the years but nothing on-going. Growing up in the church and attending Bible college, I gained much knowledge about God. I knew who He was in my head, but I knew something was missing in my heart. Each year, I looked for a new beginning, the perfect plan to lead me toward a better, growing relationship with God, one I saw evidenced in so many around me. I wanted to know how to grow.

Each year I would begin a new plan to read my Bible or learn to pray but rather than seeing my connection to God as a relationship, I was checking off my Christian to-do list. I knew there was more. God began a work of softening my heart and in that work, He showed me how. So simple and yet so true – read your Bible and pray every day. I started in Psalms and Proverbs just reading the passage and writing down my thoughts in a journal. At the start of each day, I would ask God to show me truth from His Word. I set aside a concentrated time of prayer, where I shared with God from the depths of my heart. As the truth from God’s Word filled my heart, I hungered for more. My prayer life expanded as people came to mind, and I would take them before the throne. The truth of the words in Psalm 42 became so evident in my life.

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1-2)

I thirsted for God and that thirst continues. So…when people ask me how to understand the Bible and really grow to know God and have a relationship with Him, I share the two things – read your Bible and pray.

You do not have to be a Bible scholar to understand the Words of God. Through the power of His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit, your head knowledge of God will transform your heart, and you will change to be more like Him. But this cannot happen if you do not start.

Some people like to have a Bible plan or a prayer plan, and some just dig right in. The plan is not as important as actually giving time to God. Start with a prayer to the Lord for understanding, grab a journal and begin. Read a Psalm and a chapter from Proverbs each day and record what you have learned. Add to that a good devotional and devote a portion of time to prayer – for yourself, for your family, for those around you. Pick a verse to memorize to encourage you in an area where you are struggling. Through His Word and prayer, He will guide you through life and before you know it, you are growing in your relationship with God and your knowledge of Him. You will have gone from how? to thirsting for more of Him.

My prayer for all of you as you start the new year echoes the prayer Paul had for the church of Colossae.

“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” (Colossians 1:9-12)