Getting intimate with God

Fr. Roy Cimagala

THIS should be a constant concern of ours. How can we get more and more intimate with God everyday? This is the most ideal condition that we can and should be in, and we just have to figure out how it can be achieved.

To be sure, this is no pipe dream. This is not only possible and feasible. It is first of all God’s will and he has given us everything so that we can truly get intimate with him, privy to his will and ways.

He loves us no end. Our weakness, our mistakes, our sins, if acknowledged and repented, are no problem to his undying love for us. In fact, they would even provoke God to love us more, to help us more.

We just have to do our part. Perhaps the first thing we have to do is to realize that whatever we are doing, whatever condition we may be in, is always an opportunity to be and to work with God.

This is because God is always present in us. And not only is he present in us in a passive way. He is actually always intervening in our lives. He is the one mainly directing us and things in general with his ever-abiding providence.

We need to be most aware of this reality and live and act in accord to it. We should not be contented only with fulfilling the technical goals and requirements of our daily work and affairs. While that is necessary, we would still miss the real thing unless we refer everything to God.

We should not forget that God meets us in our daily work and affairs which are part of his will for us. The duties and responsibilities that are inherent to our state in life and to our profession, etc., are part of God’s providence over us. It’s there where God actually converses with us.

This truth of our faith should not be ignored. In fact, we have to act on it always. That’s why we need to have the constant desire to dialogue with God in all our work and affairs. We need to know him better and find ways of loving him better each day.

For this purpose, we have to exert the effort of nurturing the presence of God in ourselves, seeking and renewing the human devices that are so helpful for keeping a constant dialogue with him.

We have to reach that point where we can truly say we are saying affectionate words to him, praising, glorifying and thanking him for everything.

We have to be wary of our tendency to simply go through the motions while doing some acts of piety. Our prayer should be a living encounter with God. This can be proven because such living encounter would unavoidably fill us with joy and peace despite all kinds of problems, setbacks, etc., that we may be experiencing at a given moment.

Besides, we would always be moved and motivated to do whatever we are doing in the best way we can. We would be driven with love that is not afraid to make sacrifices and is always generous in self-giving.

We would also have a running apostolic concern for everyone, because our living encounter with Christ in our prayer would lead us to adopt Christ’s mind and heart that only works for the salvation of mankind. As we said above, we would not simply be interested in meeting the technical requirements of our work. Our work will always have an apostolic dimension.

We should do everything to get intimate with God. This is the way we can be properly intimate with all the others, and to view and understand things correctly.

E-mail: roycimagala@gmail.com