You should be. God is the most fascinating, wonderful, wise, faithful being ever. If you are curious about God, you should stop every other pursuit for a season, and discover Him for yourself.

But I get it — I was once that person who held God at arm’s length — for fear He would ruin my pleasure in life. If he existed at all. At times, I wasn’t sure about that either, though the sheer beauty and brilliance of the created world we live in kept me from settling into full-on atheism.

For the first two decades of my life I sat, as many do, in the self-appointed, carefully guarded, seat of decision. The decider of whether God exists. The judge of right and wrong. The moderator between truth versus lie. Honestly, I wasn’t curious about God at all. I liked being the master of my mental domain and the architect of my life.

Until what I had built came crashing down.

Through the dust that was left of my life emerged the Lord of love and grace. He didn’t condemn me, though I deserved it. He did not smother me in rules, though my soul sorely needed discipline. In the early days of revealing himself to me, God patiently, consistently introduced Himself as the one who loved me, no matter what.

His timing was perfect. I was actually exhausted from being the master of my life. It was clear that my ways and my truth and my decisions about God were unreliable. I was ready. Led by the religious community I had tiptoed into, I confessed faith in Jesus Christ, and was baptized into His tribe. But not without curiosity.

In fact, curiosity colored everything about my first seasons with God.

Who was He, really? What would He want of me? What truth would He ask me to live by?

Those early days, curiosity served me well. I wanted to discover God as He is, not be force fed a version of Him by some religious organization. I took an easy to read translation of the Bible and read every word. I was fascinated by Him, but also still unsure. I didn’t want to be fooled into some religious falsehood, as I had seen others do. I wanted the real thing, or not at all. Even in my infancy as a Christian, I was blessed to understand that who God really is, might be very different from how religious organizations had presented Him.

If I was going to follow this God, I had to give Him a fair trial.

And that is how I saw our relationship at first. I was committed to let God be God, let Him do his thing. Aha! Still in the decider’s seat, I was.

So I read His Word. I took note of His promises. I read the stories and observed how He responded to people in the Bible. I listened to wise and balanced Bible teachers. I adopted God’s truths in place of mine. I chose to believe, simply, what the Bible said. Such as its consistent message that God communicates with His children. That He sent His Spirit to live with me, and guide me in daily life, and help me navigate this life with a completely invisible being who claimed the right to be the architect of my life.

As I write this, God and I are going on five decades together.

Through every season, curiosity has kept the door open to discovery of who this God is, in His heart of hearts.

The God I know is one I cannot imagine living without. He has revealed Himself personally, through every season, as the faithful lover of my soul. The true judge of right and wrong, who loves the right and hates the wrong. Not just for the sake of being right, but because of how “right” gives life to His children, and “wrong” steals that life. It’s all about us.

Curiosity led me to seek understanding about what makes God tick. What motivates Him to choose and act as He does? Why is something considered evil in His eyes, for instance. Again, I’ve learned it is about us. Evil, it turns out, is the enemy of life. The life God created us to live.

Curiosity has led me to discover that while yes, God jealously guards His own glory, the nature of that glory is entirely based upon His choice to be a good God. Good to His creation. Faithful friend. Generous to bless. Sharing His wisdom. God’s glory is to sustain life in His creation, and share Himself with His creation — and for His created ones to share themselves with him.

The Bible is a vast and sometimes difficult document. God is mysterious to those who keep Him at arms length. But to the curious, He makes Himself known. He will open your understanding when you read His Word with the motive to discover His truth. He loves to reveal His true heart to the soul who seeks to know Him as He is.