How to Experience God: Moving From Knowing About God to Knowing Him Personally

Stasi Eldredge: But there’s something that can happen in our hearts. It happened in mine when I just found that I was tired.

I was doing everything that I thought I should be doing. And they were good things, but I was kind of stuck in thinking that the more I did, the more I might earn his affection.

It’s kind of the sign of spiritual maturity where you have left behind feeling like you need to be performing.

And instead, you’re leaning on him. You are resting. You are dependent.

It’s this huge shift of just getting to collapse into the love of God and live your life with him versus being completely consumed with, “What am I doing wrong?”

He will gently guide us in those things, but the focus becomes on love.

Ellen Krause: Hi, everyone. Before we dive into today’s conversation, I wanted to share this comment we received from a listener in Houston, Texas.

She says,

“Today I searched for a random Bible study podcast, stumbled across your page, and saw the most recent episode about grief.

I immediately checked today’s date and confirmed that today is the one-year anniversary of my dog passing away. I know that God pointed me to your show to face my grief, and I’m thankful for your work.”

Thank you so much for sharing that. I can completely relate, as I lost one of my little buddy cat friends this year and it was agonizing. So, yeah, those are real griefs. So, thank you for sharing.

And we love hearing from all of you. Make sure you tell us what you think on this week’s episode by leaving a comment if you’re watching on Spotify or YouTube, or clicking the “send us fan mail” link in the show notes.

All right, back to the conversation.

Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I’m Ellen, your host.

Many of us would say we know God. We read His Word, we pray, we go to church, and we want to grow in our faith. But what do we do when we know what Scripture says about God’s love, but we still struggle to believe it?

Well, today we’re talking about that gap between knowing about God and truly knowing Him, and how our own stories, including wounds, disappointments, and false beliefs, can affect the way that we relate to Him.

My guest today is Stasi Eldredge. Stasi is a New York Times bestselling author, teacher, and conference speaker. She is also the co-founder of Wild at Heart, a ministry focused on helping people discover the heart of God and live from their identity in His love.

Stasi, welcome to Coffee and Bible Time!

Stasi Eldredge: Ellen, thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to be with you today.

Ellen Krause: Such a joy to have you here, Stasi. Let’s jump right into just this simple but profound thought that many people grow up knowing about God. But what does it mean to actually know God?

Stasi Eldredge: That’s so good. And knowing about Him is how we learn Him first, right?

And a good analogy is I grew up in Kansas City, and I knew a lot about the ocean. I could tell you a lot about the ocean. I knew a lot of the facts and what swam there, what it was made of.

But then I got to visit California and jump into the ocean. And then I knew the ocean. And it’s like that with God.

His invitation throughout His Word is that we come close, and in Hebrew the word is yada Him. In Greek, it’s the word gnosis, and it’s a knowing by experience.

It’s the relational kind of knowing. That’s what transforms our hearts and our minds so that we love Him in return.

I think about my husband, John. A lot of people know him. He’s the author of Wild at Heart. They may have read it and from that learned he loves fly fishing or any other things.

But I know the contours of his face. I know the sound of his footsteps. And I often know the word that he’s going to choose.

So I know what makes him happy. I know what makes him angry. I know what makes him weep. I yada John.

And that’s the kind of knowing that God invites us with Him, that we know the contours of His heart. We know the word He’s going to choose. We know what makes Him angry, or happy, or weep.

We know Him by experience and that we experience Him in our own lives. In fact, Christianity is meant to be experiential.

Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely.

And coming from someone myself who knew all about God growing up, even went to Christian school, but I did not internalize that. I did not understand the full depth of knowing God until I was an adult. And so, thank you for starting us off there.

Was there a point in your own spiritual journey when love of God went from being intellectual to being personal?

Stasi Eldredge: It really did. I became a Christian when I was 21, and it was the real deal.

I jumped full-on, head over heels, committed to Christ, serving Him, Bible study. I worked for a ministry. I was discipled and then later discipling. I mean, I was in, hook, line, and sinker.

But about 15 years in is when I noticed—I began to notice that I was dissatisfied in my relationship with God. Call it a holy dissatisfaction, where I was hungry for more.

I thought, “There has to be more. I’m not going anywhere. I believe, I know You are who You say You are. But is there more to experience?”

And for me, the dramatic moment came when I was at a day retreat, and a woman was just teaching on the profound impact we have on God’s heart when we worship Him.

And it was a new thought to me, Ellen. Like, I can affect the heart of God.

And so there was a time of just extended worship where she just put two songs on repeat and just knelt at His feet. And imagining kneeling at His feet, I was flooded with peace. And I was flooded with love for Him.

And then just the doors kind of blew open in my own faith of what was available to know and experience of God. And so that propelled me on a journey to encounter Him primarily in worship.

There’s something so beautiful worshiping with friends and family and in our church and in our Bible studies and our small groups. Incomparable. And there is something beautiful about worshiping Him in our private space with Him, in our secret place.

And I became a devoted seeker of those times. And I really sought His heart.

And I asked, “I want to know You. And I need You to reveal Yourself to me primarily through Your Word, but also through creation or…anything.” And that is a prayer that He loves to answer.

Ellen Krause: Yes. And I think so many times we don’t ask. We simply just don’t, and we have not ’cause we ask not.

Stasi Eldredge: Right. The asking is really important. Like asking for deeper revelation of who He is. He will answer that. And the thing that happens then is the more we know Him, the more we love Him.

Ellen Krause: Yes.

Stasi Eldredge: It just is a natural response.

Ellen Krause: Yes, it most definitely is. I love, Stasi, how that has worked in your heart in such a way—you’re an incredible author, and you’ve written the book The Ladder of Love, where you use the image of a ladder to describe our growing relationship with God.

And I don’t think it’s something that people have really thought of in terms of that before. We often measure spiritual growth by what we’re doing.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes.

Ellen Krause: You know, how often we’re reading the Bible or praying or serving others.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes.

Ellen Krause: But you instead define spiritual growth through a deepening of a relationship.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes.

Ellen Krause: How do you think that changes the way we think about maturity?

Stasi Eldredge: That’s so good. So spiritual maturity is about union with Christ. That’s the goal. We know that that’s what God wants.

That’s what Jesus prayed in His great priestly prayer, that Father, that they be one as we are one, me and You, You and me, like that we’re just, we’re one.

We do begin with obedience. “If you love me, you’ll obey me.” Like that’s how it works.

And it’s not that you’re gonna obey me to prove it. It’s like, if you love me, well, you’re gonna obey me because you love me.

But there’s something that can happen in our hearts. It happened in mine when I just found that I was tired.

I was doing everything that I thought I should be doing. And they were good things, Ellen.

My external reality was one of commitment and wanting to grow in Christ. But I was kind of stuck in thinking that the more I did, the more I might earn His affection.

So instead of doing it to earn, I learned, no, my activities may look exactly the same, but it’s because of what I’ve received. It’s not to earn it, it’s out of a position of rest and is actually worship.

Everything that I get to do, I do in love for Him.

So I think another thing about spiritual maturity is a restful heart. It’s kind of the sign of spiritual maturity where you have left behind striving or feeling like you need to be performing.

And instead, you’re leaning on Him. You are resting. You are dependent. And you know He’s your adequacy.

Maybe you’ve got one loaf and half a fish, and He’s gonna take that and multiply it with everything that you need.

It’s this huge shift of just getting to collapse into the love of God and live your life with Him versus being completely consumed even with, “What am I doing wrong?” He will gently guide us in those things, but the focus becomes on love.

Ellen Krause: Yes. You know, I think when I was younger in my spiritual maturity, I was rushing past recognizing that God is so amazing and powerful, yet He does want to know me.

And I was rushing past that to just read about Him or just to go serve or to do the things. But it was just a less mature version of myself.

And now, really stopping, the beginning of, let’s say, the time that I do spend with the Lord and talking to Him, you know, as if He’s sitting right there with me.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes.

Ellen Krause: And I think that when we don’t have someone, you know, like sitting there physically, that can be maybe a stumbling block for people. What do you say to someone who maybe wants to get past that?

Stasi Eldredge: I love that they would want to get past it.

There’s a journey that we all have to take. And one way that it’s going to involve is in looking at your own past, honestly, before the eyes of a loving God, to what I would call honor your story.

Because we all have a story. And it’s a story of how our hearts have been wounded, and what we have come to believe about ourselves as a result.

I began to notice about 15 years ago how my friends would pray, “Father, dear Father,” or “Abba,” even, or “Papa.” And when I prayed, it’s “Jesus, dear Jesus, dear Jesus, dear Jesus.”

And I got to the place like, “Why are they doing that?” And it was like, wow. I do not know God as my Father yet.

And I’d been a Christian for more than 30 years. So it propelled me to want to know Him as Father.

But what that entailed then was me to have to look back in my own relationship with my father and go, “What did I learn father meant? And how was that perhaps warping my perception of what God as Father is?”

Because the Scriptures tell me He is a good Father. He’s faithful and loyal and everything marvelous.

And yet I was keeping my distance.

So it took me asking Him, “I need You to reveal Yourself to me as Father. And I need You to walk with me,” and taking an honest look at my own childhood.

And nobody has a perfect father. I hope you have a fabulous one. But only God is our perfect Father.

So there is some tending that needs to be done, some reframing, maybe some excavating.

Because there are things that are in the way of us knowing Him, perhaps as Father or brother or friend, or ultimately we are His bride.

So what does that look like? We all have a story of love. And God wants to come for us in that.

Ellen Krause: You know, that was truly like one of the things that I loved so much about your book, sort of this emotional healing connected to spiritual growth.

And I’ve seen that as crucial in my own life, is, you know, confronting that, going through it, naming it.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes.

Ellen Krause: Something you said, and I wrote this quote down because I thought it was so thought-provoking.

You said,

“Sometimes we are healed instantly by His loving presence, and sometimes we are healed slowly, stitch by stitch by His careful hand. The healing actually isn’t the goal. Jesus is.”

I love that. Can you share for us a little bit more about what you meant by that?

Stasi Eldredge: We want to be healed. And Jesus wants us to be healed.

He’s after our whole hearts, to be wholehearted followers of His. He’s after our restoration.

Why? So that we will love Him with it.

He wants us to know Him. He wants to be known.

I love that. The God of the universe actually wants us to know Him. But what He wants most is for us to love Him. Love Him first, last, and in between.

And in the process, the journey of our life, in the ebbs and flows of life, in the seasons where He seems really close, or the seasons where we don’t seem to be able to find Him, He is in all of it pursuing our hearts. Strengthening our faith so that we would come to know Him.

And our healing is at the epicenter of His focus. It is. But it’s not just so that we can run faster or harder or whatever.

It’s so that we will love Him.

We love because He first loved us. And what we learn, whether it’s a quick transformation or one that is taking place steady by steady over our lives, our faith is deepening in Him. Our love for Him is deepening.

And you know, people who have been through terrible suffering and have held on to their faith and have it even strengthened will tell you, “I wouldn’t change a thing because of what I’ve come to know about God.”

That’s amazing. That’s the goal, knowing Him.

Ellen Krause: “Our hearts,” you said, “will be captured by who He is and not by what He can do for us.”

And it just reminded me so much of when Jesus was doing all of the miracles, and yet He wanted people to know Him, not just for what He could do, you know, to their outward physical ailments, but to know Him for ultimate salvation.

I love that.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes. I love that too.

And I love that He didn’t keep it a secret. You know, when they asked Him, “What’s the first and greatest commandment?” He basically said, “Love me.”

That’s the very best thing you could ever do with your entire life. Love me. And then from that, you’re going to love others.

Ellen Krause: Stasi, would you have something you’d like to share from your ministry experience about a false belief that maybe sometimes gets in the way of how someone sees God?

Stasi Eldredge: Something that I know personally and that I have experienced with a lot of women is they’re too broken to be healed, they think. Or God doesn’t like them very much.

And they might think that because of the circumstances of their life, the things that they have endured, the prayers that have gone unanswered, and the pain that they are suffering.

Pain can really warp your perception not only of who you are, but of who God is. That’s a big deal.

And the other thing is, if there’s something that you’re struggling with that you don’t seem to be able to get free of, and then you’re back again asking for forgiveness, you can think that God is getting impatient with you, that He must be disappointed.

And so all of those things fall under the category of you’ve learned Him wrong. That is not who He is.

And I have seen God come time and time and time again, revealing His true heart to His followers, and they go, “Indeed, You are the Father I always longed for. I am Your beloved daughter. I am Your beloved son.”

Or they come to know that the suffering has not been for naught, and also that they were never abandoned.

Now, I know that there are some things in this life, perhaps many things, that we are not going to understand why they happened. Not until we reach the other side.

But we can come to a place of knowing that what God says in His Word, that He uses all things for our good, or that He will complete the good work that He has begun in us, or primarily, “I love you,” is what is true.

So again, going back to that prayer of, “Reveal Yourself to me, Jesus, and show me where I have learned You wrong. I want to learn You rightly. I want to believe who You say You are, so show me who You say You are.”

Ellen Krause: That reminds me of a prayer that I just asked God for some reason—probably it was during…maybe my college years.

I got into my head that I loved God, but I just didn’t know who this Jesus guy was.

Stasi Eldredge: There you go.

Ellen Krause: And even after I accepted Christ, I would get sometimes flooded with thoughts like, “You know, you’re a Jesus freak now.”

I truly had to pray and say, “God, would You take away any of those thought patterns that are not correct about You and show me who You really are?”

That was a prayer that God answered, but it used to frustrate me to no end that those thoughts would still come into my mind.

Stasi Eldredge: It’s really good to remember that there are more players on the stage than just ourselves and God.

And it is a process of growth. I mean, we’re sanctified, right? It goes over our entire life. Yes, taking your thoughts captive before Christ. Yes, checking in. What am I feeling? Well, what am I believing?

But also knowing that we have an enemy.

God knows. He tells us. He warns us, “Put on the full armor of God.” You know, He says, “Resist the devil, stand firm in the faith.”

He gives us all kinds of things to let us know that we have an enemy who wants to divide us from knowing God and knowing Him well and being able then to receive His love.

And the main thing he’s going to use are our thoughts. What are we thinking? What are we believing?

Which is why it’s so important to know what God says, marinate in the Scriptures, to drink from that well.

Go—what do they say? I love it that experts in counterfeit money, they study the real thing. They don’t study the counterfeits. They study the real currency.

And they know it so well that if there’s just the tiniest speck of difference that comes through, they know it’s fake. They know it’s an imposter.

And that’s the call for us to know what God says in His Word, to know how He has revealed Himself, to know what Jesus says about us.

And we know it so well that when those things go through our head that are contrary, we can go, “Nope,” and reject them.

Ellen Krause: Absolutely. Absolutely.

I just love how God has been so faithful and walking me through times.

You know, you think, “That’s silly,” but it’s life, right? I mean, it’s something we’ve experienced.

Stasi Eldredge: Yes.

Ellen Krause: But I’ve seen God answer that prayer, and it just touches my heart.

Stasi Eldredge: How beautiful is that? That’s it.

Ellen Krause: Well, as we start to wrap things up here, Stasi, if someone’s listening and says, “Well, I want to experience God’s love, not just know about Him,” where should she begin?

Stasi Eldredge: That’s good.

So, I mean, just first, even acknowledging that that is a desire. Like, even as we’re talking, if something in your heart is being pricked, that is your heart echoing back to God what He desires for you.

So know that you can just say, “I’m on that road, and I want that.”

So it begins in asking Him for it, and then knowing that He will answer that.

And you can even ask Him, “How do You want me to proceed? Is there music You want me to listen to? And what do I need to do with my calendar? What do I need to do with my time in order to make the space for You to come, for me to know You more deeply?”

Because our calendars, they’ll reflect our priorities. And there are different seasons in our life where the time that we can have with Jesus might be five minutes. That’s real.

I’m in the empty-nest stage. I have a much more open schedule—

Ellen Krause: Yes.

Stasi Eldredge: —and it’s fabulous. But even when I had three minutes, He met me there.

So ask Him. And then also, in the book, I give handrails, tangible things to do to help you to dive into His heart.

And then also highlighting some of the spiritual disciplines that have been given to us through the ages as gifts to aid in our spirituality and in our walking and in our maturing.

So the first thing, ask Him, ask Him for it. And then ask what He would have you do.

Ellen Krause: Thank you so much, Stasi. I love how you end each chapter with these incredible reflections and prayers and really thought-provoking exercises.

Is there one exercise in the book that you would love for just every Christian woman to stop and do?

Stasi Eldredge: Yes, yes. And I’m not thinking one right out of the book right now, but I would say the prayer of stillness, of becoming still before God.

Mother Teresa said, “Silence is His first language.” So to set the time apart and turn your phone off, close the door if you have five minutes, if you have a half hour, however much time you have, and settle in.

Notice your breathing. Calm yourself, notice your body, and then simply ask Holy Spirit’s help to become aware of Jesus’ presence within you.

He has taken up residence in our hearts. He dwells in our hearts through faith.

So when we are seeking Him, we’re not reaching up to the heavens. We’re actually going to dive in and sink in.

And so in the quiet, in the noticing, setting your gaze onto Jesus.

Asking for Holy Spirit’s help to do that, all the distracting thoughts that are gonna come through, you just let them flit on through and go, “That’s normal. We’ll come back to you.”

But begin to worship Him in your heart and just tell Him that you love Him. Tell Him what you’re thankful for. And yeah, tell Him what’s going on.

And then in the quiet, let Him talk to you back.

It’s a practice that we can grow in, hearing His voice and this conversational intimacy, but from a position of resting and ultimately asking, “I want to love You more. Can You show me how much You love me? ‘Cause I know I will just love You in return.”

Ellen Krause: I love that, Stasi. Your book is so incredible. Where can listeners go to learn more about you and The Ladder of Love?

Stasi Eldredge: So our ministry is called Wild at Heart. So at Wild at Heart, we have a plethora of resources, of videos and teachings.

And I have a podcast called Captivated. And it’s just to encourage you in your faith and come to know more truly who you are.

You can get the book wherever you like to buy books. There’s also an audio version that I kind of want to highlight for your listeners. There are guided prayers at the end, or encounters just to lead you into an experience of Jesus. And those are crafted with music below it. And so you can just sink in and rest in it.

But I think the primary place, of course, I’m on social media, Facebook and Instagram, but would be our website.

Ellen Krause: Wonderful. Well, we will make sure we include all those links in our show notes. Before I let you go, I have to ask you a few rapid-fire questions here.

Stasi Eldredge: Okay, good.

Ellen Krause: What is your go-to Bible, and what translation is it?

Stasi Eldredge: I am an NIV girl.

Ellen Krause: All right.

Stasi Eldredge: My Bible—it’s not here right now. My Bible is about 25 or 30 years old. It’s kelly green. It’s like big and fat. It’s got my husband’s name embossed on it. Somebody gave it to him as a gift, and I swiped it from him. But that’s my Bible.

Ellen Krause: Excellent. All right. Do you have any favorite journaling supplies that you like to use, or do you like to journal?

Stasi Eldredge: I am a journaler, and I like an unlined journal. And I like it to be beautiful. So even whatever season I’m in, I kind of pick it to, like, “Where are we at right now, God?”

And mine right now is green, and it’s embossed, and it has all these flowers all over it and these little clasps.

But it’s also—what’s important to me is a good pen, one that really flows.

Ellen Krause: Yes, yes. Okay. Lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Stasi Eldredge: Okay, it comes up as Holy Bible, but isn’t it YouVersion?

Ellen Krause: Yes, YouVersion.

Stasi Eldredge: I use that almost every day.

Ellen Krause: It’s such a great resource.

Thank you for sharing those with us. And thank you so much, Stasi, for joining us today. This has just been such an encouragement to see spiritual life as a relationship, not just a routine. So thank you for joining us.

Stasi Eldredge: Thanks for having me.

Ellen Krause: And to all of you listening, I hope you’ll take one thing from this conversation and spend some time bringing it before the Lord this week.

And if something from today’s conversation encouraged you, please leave us a comment or review and tell us what stood out to you.

Well, we’ll see you next time again on the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. Have a blessed day.