When you begin to believe in God, everything at first is a mystery. The overwhelming desire to know God better and to know all His "angles" makes you prone to worry unduly. You worry if you are really "getting it right".

God really does work in a mysterious way. That’s why He is God. You will never understand exactly what is in His plan, for His plan varies for each one of us. He forms us and then tells us to go on our life’s path. He walks along with us, even when we don’t acknowledge that He is there. He waits in patience for us to come to Him.

When God "speaks" to us, He doesn’t appear as an old man with a beard, up there in the sky, among the clouds. He talks to us in our own voice, and we hear His words in our own thoughts. Sometimes, in fact nearly always, He surprises us. We wonder "what He is after", because we hear our own voice in our minds, yet we don’t immediately recognise the voice. We ask ourselves "is this me, or is this Him?"

We can’t always be sure. That is why God gives all of us the freedom to think for ourselves and to make decisions. He lets us go our own way, in the hope that we will ultimately do what is right in His sight. If we fail to do that, He doesn’t immediately condemn us to eternal Hell. God is a loving and forgiving Being. He asks only that we recognise Him and put Him first in our lives, our thoughts and our worldly actions.

You can only discover God in your own personal way. The Bible is a wonderful teaching aid, but it is not a magic spell. The Bible cannot make you any different, just because you read it, hold it, or swear by it. It serves to show example for us. It is sometimes difficult to understand, and some people spend a lifetime of study trying to discover its meaning. It was written a very long time ago, when most people were unable to write. It has been translated into many languages, and language is subject to quite different interpretations. It is important only to know that it was written by inspired people who had come to know God. In reading it, you can come to know God also.

It is our expectations of God that determine whether or not we are believers. Non-believers who would try to justify their lack of faith in God ask, for example, why God permits things like the Holocaust, famines and wars. They argue that a loving and forgiving God would not allow such horrors. What they need to realise is that God does not intervene directly in all cases. He gives mankind the ability to think and reason, and as such mankind is responsible for its actions. In the case of natural disasters – floods, famine, earthquakes and the like, these are not of God’s doing. Just as He made man, he created the natural environment in which we live, with all its faults and virtues – just as man has his faults and virtues.

We should not seek to question God’s motives but rather to accept that in submitting to His will, we acknowledge His power and unique being. That is what faith is, and why God works in mysterious ways. He does perform wonders. You are one of those wonders. You were made in the image of God and can have all you desire, as long as God desires that you have it. Accept this as truth, and you will find peace and contentment in your life.