3 Ways Your View of God Affects Your Relationship with Him

You need to understand your view of God if you want to grow closer to him.

Have you ever played Whack-a-Mole? Where little creatures pop up randomly and it’s your job to hit them with a hammer before they disappear. For a long time, that’s how I viewed God. I thought he was up in the sky playing the ultimate game of Whack-a-mole.

Waiting for me to mess up so he could bump me on the head and put me in my place. Because of this, I kept my distance from him. I didn’t want to be completely vulnerable and honest with him but I wanted to be close to him.

I kept running away from him instead of towards him with my pain, my hurts, and my heart. I always felt too dirty like I was just one terrible choice away from being cast aside forever.

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Have you ever struggled with that same feeling? Over the years, I’ve learned that your view of God shapes everything that you do as a Christian. It affects your faith walk, how you view yourself, and the way that you view life, especially hard times.

Your View of God Affects Your Faith

I’ve talked before about how your quiet time is meant to be focused on God. When it comes to your faith, how you view God is so important. When I thought that God was playing a big game of whack-a-mole, I did not view him as a good or loving father who wanted the best for me.

I viewed him as this tyrant and cold-hearted being who had no grace or mercy for me as his child. That had catastrophic effects on my faith walk. I essentially didn’t have one because I didn’t want to spend time with him or be in church. I didn’t want to read the Bible.

I didn’t want to have anything to do with growing my faith because I had a faulty image of God. You have to be so careful about this. Don’t allow your view of God to keep you from going to church, reading your word, or praying. Even if you are struggling with your view of God, go to him anyway because that’s the best place to sort all this stuff out. 

^{Feeling like your faith isn’t enough to navigate through the storm? It’s tough when emotions feel like a tidal wave, and your faith feels distant amid chaos. But what if there was a way to find peace, deepen your faith, and embrace your emotions as a pathway to growth? The Peace-Filled Mind online course is where faith meets emotional resilience.}

Your View of God Shapes Your View of Yourself

The way that you view yourself will shape your view of God. You are created in the image of God. You are a beloved child and daughter. The word of God works like a mirror at times. The more that you learn about God, the more that you learn about yourself. When you read the word and see that God is Jehovah Jireh, he provides, then you understand that part of your identity is that we lack nothing. 

Your View of God Shapes Your View of Life

The third way that your view of God affects your relationship with him is that it shapes the way that you view situations and circumstances. When you’re walking through hard things it’s tempting to wonder why God allows such great pain and suffering.

When you have a wrong view of God, you have a wrong view of your situations and circumstances. When I thought that I was too dirty for God, I looked around at my circumstances and saw no hope. There was no hope for me. There was no way out, God didn’t love me or care about me. Which was completely wrong. 

You have to know the truth so that when you look around at what’s going on, you can see it through God’s eyes and not through your hurts, pains, and negative thoughts and emotions. When you keep your eyes on God and learn more about him you allow him to tell you who you are.

When stuff goes left, you can remind yourself that things are not hopeless because your hope is in God. Who is eternally faithful, eternally in control, and eternally on your side. 

Final Thoughts on Your View of God

I just want to implore you to take some time to get to know God. It’s part of the reason bible study is so important. You cannot serve and be in a relationship with a God that you don’t know. You have to get to know him for yourself.

Do not depend on me to tell you about God or anyone around you. You have to know God for yourself. That is what your faith is about, a close personal one-on-one relationship between you and your heavenly father. It truly makes all the difference.

When I work with my coaching clients, we often end our sessions with a little homework assignment. So I’m going to give you one today. I want you to think or journal about this question: What do you really know about God? I

want you to get a piece of paper out and make a list of everything that you know, and that you think you know about God. Then take some time and test your list against scripture. See if what you think lines up with the word of God because if it doesn’t you’ve got some work to do my friend. 

Other Helpful Resources:

• How to Hear the Voice of God
• Creating an Effective Prayer Strategy
• The Key to Trusting God during Difficult Times

Which of these 3 ways has most effected your view of God?