You cannot depend on human traditions, your experience, or the experience of others to be accurate authorities on God’s will and ways. He writes on page 6, “The Scriptures will be your source of authority for faith and practice. Again and again throughout the book, Blackaby reminds His readers that they are to be captive to the Word of God and that they are to regulate their relationship to God by its teachings. Blackaby is from a conservative, evangelical tradition and is evidently deeply committed to the authority of the Scriptures. There is much in Experiencing God to commend it. The rest of the chapters in the book expand on these seven “realities.” The book opens with four introductory chapters about knowing God’s nature, doing His will, and being a servant.

You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.

God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.

God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.

God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

The structure of the book is centered on what Blackaby calls the “Seven Realities of Experiencing God.” They are: The book has been expanded from thirteen to nineteen chapters, and is not so much a workbook as is the Bible study.

The book grew out of a thirteen week study by the same name, which has been around for several years and which I participated in and even led as an undergraduate in college.

So I am glad that Henry Blackaby is able to write such a book as Experiencing God and legitimately explore how it is that God reveals His will to us in our everyday lives. I, for one, am glad that we do not serve a God like that! I am glad that when I as a Christian ask the question, “How does God guide me?”, the answer is not returned to me, “He doesn’t.” I am glad that we serve a God who does intimately involve Himself in every area of our lives, and who is constantly guiding and leading us according to His will and providence. Many were not ashamed to say that indeed there was a God, but if so, he must be one who simply set the laws of nature in place, wound the world up, and turned it loose to unwind itself without His guidance. There was a time in history when the truth of a God who is at work in the world was looked on as superstitious nonsense. It is a good question to ask, since we as evangelicals believe that God is eminently active in the world and in the lives of His people. The question, “What is God’s will for me?” is one that finds itself often on the minds of Christians. Evangelicals have long been interested in knowing how they can discern God’s leading in their lives.

Experiencing God by Henry T. Blackaby