The desire to know and contact God is an inexplicable but indisputable longing in every human being. Throughout the centuries this longing has remained constant, and even today the pursuit continues. Attempts ranging from the subtle to the extreme are being made in the quest to know God. In parts of Central Asia and the Middle East, members of a Muslim sect called the Mevlevi Order (known by some as the Whirling Dervishes) dance in an elaborate spinning motion, professing that this ritual brings them into a closer union with God. In southern Thailand, a festival takes place in which men and women pierce their cheeks with knives and skewers as they seek to commune with the divine. Making up in earnestness for any lack of exoticism, the millions of the rest of us explore numerous versions of spirituality and religion in an endeavor to somehow connect with God. Yet despite the many things we try in our earnest attempt to know Him, nothing seems to work. God remains a mystery to us.
A Breath Away
Surprising though it may be, just as we have a desire to know God, God also has a desire to have contact, and even a relationship, with us. This is why He became a man, Jesus Christ, and lived on the earth for about thirty-three years. However, that was two thousand years ago. Had we been alive then, perhaps we could have known God. But how can we know God now? Was that brief window of time the sole opportunity human beings were afforded to know God?
The answer is a resounding "No." God desires to know and be known not by just a select slice of humanity; He wants to be in touch with all people regardless of time or space. If we want to know God, we must realize that He is the Spirit.1 As the Spirit, God is as close to us as our very breath. Both in Hebrew and Greek (the Bible's original languages), the word for "breath" in the Bible can be and translated spirit. As the Spirit, God is as accessible to us as the air that we breathe.
On God's side, His availability to us is not an issue. By being as close to us as our breath, God has made Himself immediately accessible to us. On our side, however, God's availability seems limited. More precisely, our ability to contact Him seems limited. After all, how do we contact God as the Spirit—someone who is invisible and who exists outside of the physical realm?
Apples and Oranges
The seeds of the answer lie in our every day life. How do we substantiate the physical world around us? The answer is easy: with our body. We flip through our textbooks with our hands, read class notes with our eyes, and listen to lectures with our ears. It would be as impossible to describe the sound of a trumpet to a deaf person as it would be to describe the color yellow to a blind person, and yet with our ears and eyes we effortlessly substantiate the reality of sound and color. As long as our physical senses function properly, physical phenomena are easily perceived. Without them, however, the physical world seemingly ceases to exist.
However, we are not merely physical beings who, possessing sensory organs, interact with physical phenomena. We are also psychological beings who contemplate, empathize, decide, and react. Possessing these psychological faculties, which the Bible refers to collectively as the soul, we are able to touch people on an emotional and intellectual level, not merely on an animal or physical level. It would be ridiculous to try to use our eyes to think or our ears to love. Rather, by engaging our intellect we understand things, and by the sensation of our emotions we experience joy or suffer grief.
A fairly strong pattern seems to be emerging. As long as we employ the right sensory organ, we can substantiate things in the physical universe. In addition, simply by functioning as psychologically active human beings, we can touch and impact others' souls. As far as physical existence and human interaction, our body and soul are adequate. But the principle problem we have lies not in contacting other people but in contacting God. Because God is the Spirit, we cannot use our body or our soul to touch Him. We must use the part of us that corresponds to God as directly as our eyes correspond to color.
Part Unknown
The Bible reveals that God created us with a part designed specifically to contact Him.2 This part, which is deeper than both our body and our soul, is called the human spirit. God formed our spirit by breathing His own breath of life into us.3 As the product of God's breathing, our spirit perfectly corresponds to God. This part of our being is very important to God; the Bible shows us that it is as significant in the eyes of God as the heavens and the earth.4 When it comes to knowing God, all our physical acts are futile. Our philosophizing and mental exertion are inadequate. What we need in order to contact God is neither our body nor our soul but our spirit. Our spirit is for contacting God. The Bible declares that "a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually."5 The key to hearing is our ears. The key to thinking is our mind. The key to God is our spirit.
Two Spirits
God is the Spirit. We have a spirit. The compatibility between the two is astounding. What seemed like an impossibility—a genuine relationship with God—can be ours because of the Bible's revelation of the two spirits. God doesn't want us to know Him merely through sight or sound, emotion or intelligence. The only way for God to become truly real to us is by our receiving Him as the Spirit into our spirit. The moment we open our being and call on the name of Jesus, He as the Spirit enters into our spirit, and we and God become one spirit.6 Here the restless search for God finds its end. And from here we launch into an ever-unfolding life of knowing, being known by, and enjoying God Himself. 
1 John 4:24. 2 Romans 8:16. 3 Genesis 2:7 4 Zechariah 12:1. 5 First Corinthians 2:14. 6 First Corinthians 6:17.
To receive the Lord Jesus as the Spirit into your spirit, please pray the following prayer from your heart:
"Lord Jesus, I open my whole being to You. Thank You for creating me with a spirit to receive You. Lord Jesus, right now I open to receive You as the Spirit into my spirit. Forgive me of my sins and come into me right now to fill the deepest part of my being with Yourself."
