Three Lessons on Drawing Near to God

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Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you (James 4:8a, NASB1995).

My 2026 New Year’s resolution, rather short and simple: to draw near to God, so that He will draw near to me. It’s not easy, as I’m experiencing “the drawing near to Him and Him to me” as one of the most exhilarating but complicated resolutions I’ve made.

Three lessons that I’ve learned so far:

I pray daily that I’ll know His presence.

In the Greek, there is a word translated as “knowledge” that means knowing the facts, and another word in the Greek translated as “knowledge” which means “personally knowing” someone. When you know someone, you understand how they think and can predict their actions.

Jesus had this relationship with His Father in heaven and indicated this closeness when He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing” (John 5:19).

It’s a daily practice or discipline for me to see and know what the Father is doing in my life, with those I know, in my ministry, and in daily interactions.

I pray daily that I hear His voice.

I’ve noticed a difference between “presence” and “voice” in my relationship with God. 

Presence is continual as God is always there; it’s my inattentiveness that loses the conscientiousness of God’s presence. But hearing God’s voice is different. His voice can be actual spoken words or impressions through my spirit by the Holy Spirit. The more that I focus on hearing God, the louder and more distinctive His voice becomes.

Last week I didn’t listen. My wife and I were in an Uber® on the way to the airport, coming home from our vacation trip to Panama City, Panama. I was watching my Uber’s progress on their App when a notification popped up on my screen indicating our flight was delayed. 

Long delays with planes heading to Atlanta often cause further delays and flight cancellations on the way out of Atlanta. Utilizing both types of knowing, both “intellectual” and “experiential,” I realized that being stuck for the night in the Atlanta airport was the modern-day equivalent of purgatory.

At that moment, as the Uber went by a hotel where my wife and I had previously stayed, I had a God-impression telling me, “Tell the Uber driver to turn around and go back to that hotel.” I didn’t listen, and eventually my wife and I were standing in the Atlanta terminal at 2:30 a.m., after hours of delays, listening to the announcement that our flight home had been canceled.  

Please, Lord, give me grace to hear clearly next time; this indicates my next learning point…

I pray that I will have the courage and faith to obey when I hear the Lord.

Knowing God and hearing His voice means nothing if we don’t obey. And it’s proportional because the more we know, hear, and obey — the more we know, hear, and obey. But without obedience, the knowing and hearing dwindle.

God revealing Himself for our knowing and the Father speaking for our hearing are His initiatives that must be met by our faith when we act. As Paul writes, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:17).

Remember: Know. Hear. Obey! And next time I’m spending an extra day on vacation!!

Modern-day purgatory at 2:30 a.m. in the Atlanta airport.