Finding God is a developmental process that grows closer and more intense through various stages.
Stage 1: Faith | Grace
The first stage a person must take involves a foundational faith and the recognition of grace – understanding that God truly exists.
How can one reach this stage?
Quite simply: you talk to God, ask Him for a sign, and invite Him into your life.
If you are open enough, not inwardly closed off or disconnected, you will feel a profound grace – and you’ll realise there’s far more than you could ever imagine.
You’ll experience feelings you’ve never known without drugs. It’s like floating on clouds, the world is full of music – you could dance through life.
Stronger than human infatuation – a true, gracious happiness.
Stage 2: Proving Yourself | Change
Instinctively, you then feel more – because God makes you more empathetic. You become more attuned to yourself and begin to work on self-improvement. The strengths within you become apparent. Every person carries good and evil within them – that’s part of being human. Once God enters your life, you can distinguish between the two.
Now comes the proving ground. Naturally, you only want to live in goodness and avoid evil. But the task is to cultivate the good and transform the bad.
This should be done thoughtfully. Such powerful forces can be unleashed that some people want to change their entire lives in one go. Often, those around them become confused – or the changes are so extreme that balance is lost, and you fall from Stage 2 back into an unbelieving life.
During this phase, it’s important to remain calm and discuss everything with God. You should discern which spirit is truly at work and only pursue good, well-considered changes. Ideas need to be slept on. Important decisions should only be made when you are 100% certain that the spirit at work is indeed the Holy Spirit.
You have to learn this way of interacting. How do you learn it best? By engaging with content that comes from God’s source: much prayer to Jesus – ideally daily – daily Bible reading (even if it’s difficult at first), and staying in the Spirit of God as much as possible. It can also be helpful to join a church or seek guidance from Christian professionals. This way, you can reach the next stage, and your closeness to God will deepen. What initially seems like a struggle slowly turns into peace and fulfilment.
Stage 3: Gratitude
Once you’ve navigated the most significant changes, are firm in your thinking and prayer, and feel inwardly stable, cultivate daily gratitude. Thank God or Jesus for everything – every single day. This is one of the greatest forces I know. Simply say first thing upon waking, “God, thank you that I get to experience another day with you.”
Gratitude is a weapon. I suspect it’s because it triggers so much positivity – and that is deeply healing. The opposite – complaining – makes a person poor and an inner beggar if they don’t handle it mindfully.
A grateful person is a good person. Their inner forces are in balance. They may not be an angel yet, but they find it easier to stay in goodness. At this stage, peace becomes increasingly sustainable, frequent, and beautiful.
Yet the task remains: to learn to deal with your own feelings – without manipulating them through substances, habits, or substitute actions.
Life means facing our humanity – and with God, shaping a soul that one day can enter where duality no longer exists, but perfect peace.
God needs our lives to assess us – and He helps us to reach Him in the best possible way. We just need to stick with Him.
Stage 4: Trust
The most important stage – but it takes time. Whoever can blindly trust God has made it. Such a person no longer worries, is completely there for their fellow human beings, and becomes a visible light in the world. Their radiance is impressive.
At this stage, God blesses us with everything we need – as long as it doesn’t harm us and cannot be misused through our weaknesses.
Those were the four stages – perhaps simply and briefly described, but that’s exactly how I perceive them. I’m still here for a few more days – perhaps I’ll discover more stages. But these four have clearly manifested in my life, and I strive to keep growing in Stage 4.
Thank you for everything, God the Father – Son & Holy Spirit. Our triune God, Creator of this wonderfully mad world.