Are You Confused as to Who God Really Is?
👉🏻 If so, then here’s the struggle: when you don't know who someone really is, it's difficult to feel safe with them.
Think about that for a moment:
If someone is unpredictable, you don't know what version of them you're going to get.
If they're critical, you may constantly wonder whether you've done something wrong.
If they're emotionally distant, you may spend your time trying to figure out whether they actually care.
🫤 And if that's how you've come to understand God, then of course you're going to struggle to believe that He loves you.
Because love isn't just about hearing the words “I love you.”
Love is something you experience through someone's character.
Through the way they treat you.
Through whether they're consistent.
Through whether they're trustworthy.
Through whether you can relax in their presence instead of constantly wondering what you did wrong.
And maybe that's part of what's happening for you with God.
❓ You don't necessarily believe that God hates you. You just don't know what to expect from Him.
You wonder:
Is God going to be kind to me today?
Is He disappointed in me?
Is He withholding something because I did something wrong?
Can I trust Him with my life?
What if He changes His mind?
What if I get too close and discover that He's not actually the God I thought He was?
So you may find yourself keeping God at arm's length.
You want to know Him, but you're also a little afraid of Him.
You want to trust Him, but you don't know if He's trustworthy.
You want to believe He loves you, but you don't really know what His love looks like.
🥱 And that uncertainty can be exhausting, right? Because you're constantly trying to figure God out.
God’s Love Isn’t Separate from His Character
👉🏻 Also, your natural frame of mind is something along the lines of: “I can't really know what God is going to be like.”
Maybe sometimes He's loving.
Maybe sometimes He's angry.
Maybe sometimes He wants to be close.
Maybe sometimes He's distant.
Maybe sometimes He's pleased with you.
Maybe sometimes He's disappointed.
So you learn to approach Him cautiously.
You monitor His reactions.
You try to figure out what mood He's in.
And you may even believe that the safest way to relate to God is to simply try really hard not to upset Him.
But here's the problem with that picture:
If God is unpredictable, you can't really trust Him.
If God is constantly critical, you can't really rest with Him.
If God is emotionally distant, you can't really feel secure in His love.
🤔 And eventually, you stop asking, “Does God love me?” and start asking: “Can I trust the God who says He loves me?”
Those are two very different questions.
💗 But the second one is an important question. Because God's love isn't separate from God's character.
If God says He loves you, but you believe He's fundamentally unpredictable or unsafe, you're going to struggle to receive that love.
So we need to look at something deeper than simply asking whether God loves you.
We need to ask: Who is God?
Who is God?
👉🏻 But here's the good news, friend: God doesn't ask you to guess who He is. He reveals Himself over and over throughout Scripture.
And when you start paying attention to His character, you begin to see a consistent picture:
He is gentle.
He is faithful.
He is trustworthy.
He is consistently good.
Not sometimes. Not when you're behaving perfectly. Not only when life is going the way you want it to.
This is who He is.
✝️ And if you've been afraid that God is constantly looking for reasons to criticize you, I want you to notice how Jesus describes Himself.
In Matthew 11:28–29 (NLT), Jesus invites those who are weary and burdened to come to Him. And then He describes His heart as “gentle and humble.”
It says: Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
That's remarkable!
When Jesus had the opportunity to tell us what His heart is like, He didn't describe Himself as harsh.
He didn't say, “I'm waiting for you to get your act together.”
💖 He said: “I am gentle and humble in heart.”
So if you've been carrying a picture of God as someone you have to approach carefully because you never know what you're going to get, I want you to let Jesus challenge that picture.
God is gentle.
God is faithful.
God isn't constantly changing His mind about you.
He isn't here today and gone tomorrow.
He doesn't love you one day and withdraw that love the next.
Psalm 100:5 (NLT) also tells, “For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”
And Lamentations 3:22–23 (NLT) says, “The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease.”
Notice that Scripture doesn't describe God as occasionally faithful.
Faithfulness is part of His character. It's who He is.
So when you wonder, “Can I trust that God will still be here tomorrow?” The answer isn't based on how well you perform today.
It's based on who God is.
Psalm 9:10 (NLT) says: “Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O LORD, do not abandon those who search for you.”
💯 Friend, there's a connection there I don't want you to miss: knowing God leads to trusting God.
The more you understand who He actually is, the less you have to live by guesswork.
You don't have to wonder:
Is God secretly against me?
Is He waiting for me to mess up?
Can I trust His heart?
Scripture keeps pointing you back to His character.
He is trustworthy and consistently good.
Psalm 34:8 (NLT) says: “Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!”
I love that language because it isn't simply: Believe this because I said so. Instead, it's an invitation to experience and discover God's goodness.
🥰 And God's goodness isn't something He turns on and off depending on your performance.
Again, it's simply part of who He is.
👀 And that's important because you may be tempted to interpret everything that happens in your life as evidence of what God thinks about you.
If something good happens, you think: God must be pleased with me.
If something difficult happens, you think: Maybe God is angry with me.
But that's another way of making God's character unpredictable.
📖 Instead, Scripture invites you to know God's character even when you don't understand your circumstances.
You may not always understand what God is doing.
You may not always feel His presence.
You may not always like what is happening.
But you can still know something about who He is.
He is good.
He is faithful.
He is trustworthy.
He is gentle.
And that's where you can begin.
How to Focus on God’s Character
👉🏻 This week, instead of asking yourself: “Does God love me today?” ask: “What do I know about God's character?”
And then choose one characteristic of God to pay attention to.
Maybe it's His gentleness.
Maybe it's His faithfulness.
Maybe it's His goodness.
Maybe it's His trustworthiness.
Take one of those characteristics and look for it in Scripture.
✋ And then, throughout your week, when something happens that makes you question God's love, pause before jumping to a conclusion about Him.
Ask yourself: “Is this telling me something about God's character—or am I filling in the blanks because I don't understand what's happening?”
Because you don't have to figure out who God is by guessing.
Let Him show you.
The goal isn't to force yourself to feel completely confident about God overnight.
It's simply to begin getting to know Him as He actually is.
Because the more you know His character, the more you'll have something solid to stand on when your feelings change.
And you may slowly discover: “I can trust this God.”
Action Step
Now that said, if you've been struggling with knowing who God really is and whether you can trust Him, I want to invite you to join my membership community, Relate Escape Place.
You don't have to figure God out by yourself.