Q: What can I do to experience the fuzzy, warm, loving feeling of contentment within myself knowing that God Loves me?

A: The way of getting closer with God is pretty much the same as getting closer to any person. We recognize them and we share ourselves with them. In this way, we get to know each other more fully. God is revealed in The Urantia Book as a person…”one who can befriend us.”

1:5.8 Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator personality, a person who can “know and be known, ” who can “love and be loved, ” and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as other humans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality.

Just as we share ourselves with our intimate friends, we can share our lives with God, and one way to do this is to invite him into our daily lives…talking things over with him throughout the day. This communication with God is also the way that we may pray most effectively. The words themselves are not so important, for God reads our inmost hearts and our deepest desires. He answers our soul’s attitude.

91:8.12 Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul’s attitude, not the words.

146:2.4 By opening the human end of the channel of the God-man communication, mortals make immediately available the ever-flowing stream of divine ministry to the creatures of the worlds. When man hears God’s spirit speak within the human heart, inherent in such an experience is the fact that God simultaneously hears that man’s prayer.

As we reach up, God reaches down to meet us as we are, and where we are. Opening that channel of communication is first, and listening for the answer comes next. This requires quietness and receptivity, as God speaks to us in a “still, small voice.” So, periods of meditation are also very helpful.

We also learn:

101:1.3 The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind.

So, while having that warm, fuzzy feeling of God-consciousness can be comforting, such feelings may come and go. We learn that we should concentrate more on the “believing and knowing” aspects of communication with God.

103:9.11 Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.

One way of knowing for sure whether you are making progress with this back-and-forth communication with God is your own personal spiritual experience. Over time, and with faith, we will surely begin to experience that inner knowledge that we are on the right path. God will always work with us when we are willing to work with him.