“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed nor shall there be any after me.” — Isaiah 43:10
As followers of Christ, we would all say we know God. Of course we do! We go to church, we pray, we read our Bibles and have Sunday night fellowship with our friends. But do we really know God? Who is He to you personally?
Think of other people you know in your life. They all play a special and unique part in your journey. There is one that makes you laugh, another who challenges you, and yet another you can confide in with full trust. You know these people not because you’ve studied them but because you’ve walked with them. You’ve been through life together. The knowing came through the experiencing.
But who is God to you? Not who do you know Him to be theologically. Not what have you learned about Him in seminary or Bible study or from the pulpit. Who is He to you right now, in this season, in whatever you’re walking through today?
That question changes everything for a leader.
The Season Reveals the Knowing
Whatever season God brings into your life, it is for the purpose of knowing Him more. Are you in need? He is your Provider. Are you in a difficult season of persecution or attack? He is your Shield and Defender. Are you brokenhearted? He is your Wonderful Counselor and Comforter.
Notice what’s happening there. God doesn’t just reveal truth about Himself in general terms. He reveals who He is to you specifically, in the context of what you’re actually living through. The leader who has never been in genuine need doesn’t really know God as Provider. Not the way someone who has been on the edge of having nothing and watched God come through knows Him. The leader who has never faced real opposition doesn’t know God as Defender the way someone who has been attacked and found God standing between them and the assault knows Him.
This is why seasons of hardship are so valuable, even though we’d never choose them. They introduce us to parts of God’s character that comfort and success will never reveal. And for leaders, this is where the depth of your ministry comes from. You can’t lead people into a knowledge of God that you yourself don’t possess. You can teach concepts you’ve studied. But you can only offer the kind of guidance that changes lives when your knowledge of God is personal, tested, and real.
I’ve walked alongside leaders for decades, and I can tell you this: the ones who carry the most weight in people’s lives aren’t the ones with the most polished theology. They’re the ones who can look at someone in crisis and say, “I know who God is in this moment, because I’ve met Him here myself.” That’s knowing. Not just about Him, but knowing Him.
The Prosperity Problem
It’s easy for us to long for seasons of peace and rest so that we can relax our spiritual muscles and just “enjoy life.” And yet, where do we tend to place God in times of prosperity?
Before entering the promised land of Canaan, Moses warned the Israelites time and time again: when you enter this great land, do not forget the Lord. That warning wasn’t about the wilderness. The wilderness kept them dependent. The warning was about abundance. Because prosperity has a way of making us feel like we’ve arrived, like we no longer need God the way we did when we were desperate.
This is the tendency of the flesh. To cry out to God in distress, receive His redemption, then tell Him, “Whew, thanks for getting me out of that mess! I’ll take it from here…” And off we go, walking along in our happy contentment until God orchestrates the next disruption to humble us and bring us back to a point of need for Him and Him only.
For leaders, this cycle is dangerously familiar. You hit a hard season. You cry out to God. He shows up in powerful ways. You come through it with a deeper knowledge of who He is. And then things get better. The church grows. The team stabilizes. The pressure lets up. And somewhere in the relief, you stop pressing in. You still do the spiritual routines. You still open in prayer and close in worship. But the desperate, personal knowing starts to cool. You go from needing Him to managing without Him, and you don’t even realize it’s happened until the next crisis hits and you find yourself scrambling to reconnect with the God you slowly sidelined during the good season.
I’ve seen this pattern repeat in leader after leader. And the painful part is that most of them don’t see it until they’re back in the valley and realize they don’t know God the way they thought they did. They know things about Him. They have theological categories for Him. But the personal, intimate, “I know Him because I walk with Him daily” kind of knowing has eroded.
Knowing Him in Every Season
Does this mean we will never have times of peace and prosperity? Of course we will. It is in those times that we must beg God to keep our fragile humanity ever before us, so that we do not grow prideful and think we are without constant need of our Savior.
This is one of the most countercultural things a leader can do: stay desperate for God when everything is going well. The world says you’re desperate when you’re losing. Scripture says you should be most vigilant when you’re winning. Because winning is where the forgetting begins.
The leaders who know God most deeply are the ones who refuse to let any season, good or bad, pass without pressing into who He is in the middle of it. In the hard seasons, they meet Him as Healer, Defender, Provider. In the good seasons, they meet Him as Sustainer, Giver, the One who deserves all the credit. They don’t relegate God to crisis management. They walk with Him through every terrain the way you’d walk with a friend through every chapter of life. The knowing deepens because the walking never stops.
And here’s what that produces in leadership: credibility that can’t be manufactured. When a leader truly knows God, not just knows about Him, it shows up in how they handle pressure. It shows up in the peace they carry when things fall apart. It shows up in the humility they maintain when things go well. It shows up in the counsel they give, because it doesn’t come from a book. It comes from a relationship. People trust that kind of leader, because they can tell the difference between someone who has studied God and someone who has walked with Him.
The Reliable Messenger Who Knows the Sender
This connects directly to what it means to be a reliable messenger. You can carry a message from someone you’ve never met. Technically, it’s possible. But the delivery will be flat. It will lack conviction, warmth, and the kind of authority that only comes from personal relationship. The messenger who knows the sender intimately carries the message differently. There’s a weight to it. A confidence. A tenderness that comes from knowing the heart behind the words.
That’s what your leadership becomes when you truly know God. Your teaching isn’t just content. It’s testimony. Your counsel isn’t just wisdom. It’s experience. Your presence in someone’s crisis isn’t just support. It’s the overflow of a God you’ve met in your own crises. And that’s the kind of leadership a dying world is looking for. Not polished. Not perfect. Personal. Proven. Real.
As Blaise Pascal once said, “Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair.” That’s the God worth knowing. Not just studying. Knowing.
Next Steps for the Leader Who Wants to Know God More Deeply
Answer the personal question honestly. Who is God to you right now? Not who should He be. Not who was He to you five years ago. Right now, in this season, what is your actual experience of Him? If the answer feels distant or generic, don’t panic. But don’t ignore it either. That gap between knowing about Him and knowing Him is the most important thing you can address in your leadership right now.
Let your current season teach you something new about God. Whatever you’re walking through today, whether it’s abundance or adversity, ask God to reveal a dimension of His character that you haven’t experienced before. If things are hard, let Him show you that He is your Defender, your Comforter, your Sustainer. If things are good, let Him show you that He is the Source, the Giver, the One who deserves the praise you’re tempted to keep for yourself.
Guard the good seasons more carefully than the hard ones. If you’re in a season of prosperity and peace right now, pay extra attention to your walk with God. This is where the drift is most subtle and most dangerous. Don’t wait until the next crisis to get serious about knowing Him. Stay desperate now. Stay dependent now. The wilderness has a way of keeping you close to God. Abundance requires you to choose it intentionally.
Move from studying God to walking with God. There’s nothing wrong with theological depth. But if your primary mode of knowing God is intellectual, you’re only getting part of the picture. This week, try talking to God the way you’d talk to a close friend. Not formal. Not scripted. Just honest. Tell Him what’s going on. Ask Him what He thinks. Sit quietly and listen. The transition from studying God to walking with God is the transition from knowledge to relationship, and it changes everything about how you lead.
Let knowing Him become the purpose of your next breath. Not your next sermon. Not your next strategy. Your next breath. That kind of moment-by-moment awareness of God doesn’t happen through effort alone. It happens through desire. And if the desire isn’t fully there yet, remember what we talked about: pursue Him anyway. The knowing produces the desire. The walking produces the intimacy. Start today.
No matter where you are today in your walk with Jesus, He longs to reveal Himself to you in a fresh new way. His mercies are new every morning. Don’t miss it. Let Him fill whatever need you have in this season. Let Him prove that He knows you best and loves you the most.
Let knowing your Lord become the very purpose of your next breath.