God Is ...

I spent several weeks in August defining myself. Those essays were a response to an assignment given to me by my counselor. Coming up with ten definitions for myself was challenging and hard. I had to dig deep. I spent a lot of time in prayer, asking God to show me things about myself. And it was worth the effort.

However, that assignment had two parts, the second of which was to come up with ten things that I knew personally to be true about God. In other words, I am to make my top ten “God is …” list. This past week, I’ve been seeking and searching out for the truths I know about God. It’s so much easier to tell what I know to be true about God … He is faithful, He is good, He is merciful, He is forgiving, etc. That list could go on and on and on. There are so many, many truths about God … far beyond ten!

I’ve been praying that God would give me some deep and personal truths about Himself. The list that follows is the result of that prayer. Over the past week, God’s spoken to my heart and allowed me to discover some various parts of who He is … some of which are things I have known but forgotten and some are things that I have long believed but perhaps need to acknowledge more in my life.

With that said, here is my list:

Ten Things That Paige Terry Knows To Be True About God:

1. God is not human. (Isaiah 55:8)

I sometimes think about God as having human attributes. I say that God is good or faithful. And those things are true, but yet it isn’t. I’m thinking of good as in a human is good. I’m thinking of faithful as in the way that I’m faithful. God is far beyond that for His goodness, faithfulness, kindness, love, etc is not anything like that of a human. He is God and His ways are not my ways. I will never begin to fathom or grasp an understanding of all God is for He is much greater than my small insignificant human self can possibly imagine. And yet …



2. God longs for me to know Him. (Matthew 7:7)

God reveals Himself to us through His creation, His Son and His word, among other things. If we seek Him, we will find Him. We can know that God wants us to know Him because …



3. God knows me more intimately than I even know myself. (Psalm 139:13; Luke 12:7)

Not only does God want for me to know Him, but He knows me intimately. The Bible tells me that He knows the number of hairs on my head! Truly, God knows me better than I know myself, and there is a security in that. I’ve seen this quote before but it fit perfectly with this thought: “Jesus loves me, this I know ... Jesus KNOWS me, this I love!” And because God knows us intimately …

4. God wants to give me the desires of my heart. (Psalm 37:4)

God knows me so well that He knows the burning desires I have … the secret longings and dreams, my hopes and plans. And not only does He know those things, but He longs to bless me with them. I can lay those things before Him as an offering, and trust that my desires are safe in His care because I also know that …



5. God has good plans for my future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

As I think ahead to the rest of my life, I can know that God has plans for me. He isn’t through with me yet and He wants me to know that He has my best interest at heart. Sometimes I don’t get the desires of my heart. But even then, I can trust that God has something far better than my selfish wants in mind for me. And when the hard times come (because hard times are going to come in this earthly life), I know that …



6. God blesses me, especially in the midst of trials and troubles. (Psalm 23: 5)

Two years ago, on a bright fall day in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, I sat with my sweet friend Josephine. My husband had just declared he no longer wanted to be married to me, and that furthermore marrying me was a mistake from the start. He claimed to have never loved me. My heart was shattered. I felt numb … as if I were just moving through the motions of living. As far as I was concerned, my life was over. I recall thinking that it was so ironic that my life began in North Carolina in the fall, and that it was ending in North Carolina in the fall. I was more heartbroken that day than I have ever been. My soul was downcast and beaten. I saw absolutely no hope for my future, and nothing good in my life at all.

That afternoon, as the evening sun shone down on us creating a warmth like I’ve never felt before, Josephine put her arm around me and said, “Paige, God has promised to prepare a table before you in the midst of your enemy. I know things are so hard right now, but let’s just take a minute to look at the table God has spread before you.” And then she began to name the blessings in my life … things that even in my great grief I knew were gifts from God.

The lesson I learned that day and in the months that followed is that God is generous and He loves to bless us, especially when we are hurting. He longs to do this for us because …



7. God is caring toward me. (Isaiah 40:11)

One of my favorite names for God is Abba, or Father. He loves us like a good father loves his children. This means He longs to see us come to Him with our troubles, to seek His advice, to rest in His loving arms. As our Heavenly Father, He must discipline us. He wants our full obedience. He always cares about us because of His great love for us. And perhaps the most amazing thing about the love of my Heavenly Father is that …



8. Nothing can separate me from the love of God. (Romans 8:33-39)

He knows me, with all my faults, and still loves me better than anyone else ever has or ever will. And that’s what amazes me!


(Sadly, I cannot make these last two truths about God fit into a nice little segue, as I have for the previous eight truths. I suppose they will have to stand alone, as much as it bugs me.)


9. There is only one true God, yet He exists in three parts … the Holy Trinity.
(Genesis 1:26; John 10:30)

This is a mystery to me. I’m not sure how one God can be God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all at the same time. I cannot begin to explain it, and yet I know and trust that this is the way God exists.



10. God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. (2 Peter 3:8; Revelation 19:6)

God is everywhere, at all times. He is all powerful. These traits, which belong solely to God, are hard for me to fully grasp and imagine. I simply have to trust that God is these things because He has said so. I don’t understand because I am human and God is God, which means that I’ve gone full circle.


This past week God has been revealing Himself to me. Some of it was shown to me in new ways, but nothing that God revealed was earth shattering news to me. These were things I already knew, for the most part. However, what God did do was to show me that if I truly believe all of these things, then the way I live my life should reflect it.

One of my very favorite songs is called “You are the Sun” and is sung by Sara Groves. As I’ve typed this out, I’ve thought of the words to the chorus over and over:


You are the sun shining down on everyone
Light of the world giving light to everything I see
Beauty so brilliant I can hardly take it in
And everywhere you are is warmth and light

And I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I cannot be a light unless I turn my face to you


The cry of my heart is this: “Oh, Precious Jesus … let me be the moon so that I reflect nothing but You!”