4 Surprising Ways to Deepen Your Relationship with God

I want to share 4 surprising ways to deepen your relationship with God.

Many times, when we think of getting closer to God, we think of prayer, worship and studying His Word. These are all important and necessary, but there are lesser-known ways we can grow in intimacy with Him.

1. Create Specific Playlists

One helpful tip is to create specific playlists for praise and worship.

For example, I have a playlist for praise music and another for intimate worship. This helps me quickly get to my praise music during times of spiritual warfare and to my slower, softer worship music during times where I want to go deeper with God.

I recommend dividing your music by playlist to keep everything organized and to have it ready when different needs and seasons arise. You may also want to have a playlist dedicated to instrumental worship music if you want to study with it playing in the background or use it for a time of prayer.

2. Steward Your Story

Our testimonies are so important. One of the ways we overcome the enemy is through our testimony (Revelation 12:11).

I suggest starting by writing down your testimony in a journal. Reflect on your journey with God and everything you have walked through with Him.

After you’ve written down your story, ponder and pray about how you could share your story with others to encourage them in their faith. Your story is unique, so it doesn’t matter if it seems more simple or complicated than someone else’s, it’s your personal testimony and you overcome through it.

Psalm 107:2 says,

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.

When reflecting on your journey with God, ponder if there are any themes and patterns in your life.

Ask yourself:

• Has God repeated any Scriptures to me?

• Are there any themes in my journey, such as healing, deliverance, my calling, etc.?

• What verses and themes transcend every season of my life?

Identifying what God has taught you and any repetition in your life will help you understand more of God’s heart for you.

For me personally, I have noticed that God kept repeating a certain Scripture to me in many different seasons and through many different people. This has become a foundation of my life, because God established His Word over my life through many witnesses. I have also only recently noticed why I was so drawn to a certain word and theme ever since my childhood, because I finally found Scriptures for them which relate to part of my name.

God is into the details and He will repeat patterns and themes to show us a point and to reveal our personal calling, identity and character.

3. Journal Prompts for the Heart

In addition to journaling our testimony, we can also create separate journals for connecting to God’s heart and our heart.

Ideas for connecting with the heart of God:

• Repeated phrases the Father said in the Old Testament

• Repeated phrases / actions of Jesus in the Gospels

• Studying colors in the Bible

• Studying repeated themes in the Bible such as:

  • Mercy

  • Redemption

  • Marriage

Ideas for connecting with your heart:

• Verses that resonate with your life

• Words that you like

• Colors, numbers and animals you like

• Activities you like such as:

  • Gardening

  • Painting

  • Singing

  • Cooking

  • Helping others.

Doing Bible study from this relational perspective makes everything more exciting and meaningful, rather than just studying the Word without a clear direction. He has so many mysteries hidden in the Word and we have the opportunity to search them out.

4. Study Nature

Studying plants, animals and science helps us better understand what God is saying when He communicates to us through dreams, visions, His voice and His Word.

Things are first natural, then spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46).

An easy way to practice this is to watch a nature documentary or a TV channel with shows about animals.

God has much to say about various plants and animals throughout the Psalms and Proverbs, so as we study them we can better grasp what He wants to get across.

For example, (Proverbs 6:6-8) talks about the ways of the ant and what we should learn from it.

Sometimes the same plants and animals in the Bible have a positive and negative meaning, so we have to interpret it in context.

One example of this is bees. Bees are used in a positive context in (Exodus 3:8) where the Promised Land is described as a land flowing with milk and honey. Bees produce honey, so in this case bees relate to a positive meaning of prosperity. In contrast, bees are used in a negative context in (Psalm 118:12) to represent the psalmist’s enemies.

The prophet Daniel and his companions Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had wisdom and understanding in science (Daniel 1:4). Joseph, Solomon and many others throughout the Bible had understanding of nature and used it to both communicate and understand what God was saying to them.

These have helped me along my journey with Him thus far and I pray they will be a blessing to you as well.