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It is late. The dinner is over. The man at the head of the table has just washed everybody’s feet and is now talking about leaving. And one of His oldest friends, a practical guy named Philip, finally says the thing he has been carrying around the whole time.
“Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us” (John 14:8). In plain words: just let me see God, and that will be enough. It is the exact prayer behind “how to get closer to God.” And the answer Philip got that night might be the most hopeful thing anyone searching that phrase could hear.
The Man Who Was Close and Still Felt Far
Philip was not a stranger to Jesus. He was one of the first people Jesus went looking for. John says Jesus “findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me” (John 1:43). Philip said yes. He was there for the miracles, the meals, the long walks, the crowds.
He was also a numbers guy. When thousands of hungry people showed up on a hillside, Jesus turned to Philip and asked where they could buy bread. Philip did the math on the spot: “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little” (John 6:7). That is a man who wants something he can count, touch, and check.
So it makes sense that he is the one who asks to see. He had been walking next to Jesus, sitting at the same table, and still something in him felt like God was somewhere else. Somewhere further off. Somewhere he had not reached yet.
If that is how you feel tonight, you are in good company. You can believe in God, pray, even go to church, and still feel like you are standing outside a door you cannot find the handle for.
The Answer Philip Got
Here is how Jesus answered him: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” (John 14:9).
Read that slowly. Jesus does not tell Philip to try harder. He does not give him a ladder of spiritual steps. He does not say, “Someday, if you get good enough, you will see God.”
He says, in effect: You have been looking at it this whole time.
Every time Philip watched Jesus touch someone nobody else would touch, he was seeing what God is like. Every meal with people others avoided. Every time Jesus stopped for one person in a crowd. Every patient answer to a slow question, including Philip’s. It was all right there in front of him.
The Detail Most People Read Past
There is a small moment two chapters earlier that makes this even sharper. Some Greek visitors came to the feast in Jerusalem, and they walked up to Philip, of all people, and said: “Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:21). Philip went and told Andrew, and together they told Jesus.
Strangers came to Philip asking to see Jesus. Then, a short time later, Philip is asking Jesus to see God. He was helping other people find the very thing he felt he was missing.
That is not a failure story. That is a human story. Sometimes we are nearer than we feel. We just have not learned where to look.
The New Testament says it plainly in another place, calling Jesus “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). God is not a blur behind the clouds. If you want to know what God is like, you look at Jesus.
How to Get Closer to God Starting Tomorrow
This changes the question. “How do I get closer to God?” can feel like a huge, fuzzy goal with no first step. But “How do I look more closely at Jesus?” has an answer you can start before breakfast.
Here is a simple way to do it.
- Pick one scene, not one book. Read one short story from the life of Jesus in the Gospels. One healing. One conversation. One meal. That is enough for a day.
- Ask Philip’s question of it. Before you close the page, ask: “What does this show me about what God is like?” Not “what should I do,” not yet. Just: what is God like, if Jesus is showing me?
- Write down one word. Patient. Kind. Honest. Unhurried. Brave. One word about God that this scene showed you.
- Carry it into your day. Talk to God once, in plain words, about that one thing. “I saw today that You stop for people. Would You stop for me?”
That is it. It will not feel dramatic. But do it for a few weeks and something shifts. God stops being an idea you are trying to reach and starts being Someone you recognize. If you want more on the small-steps side of this, this piece on how to have a relationship with God starts even smaller.
And if you are not sure which Gospel to open first, where to start in the Bible gives you a simple answer so you do not end up stuck in Leviticus on day three.
What Changes for You
Picture a normal morning a month from now. The coffee is the same. The commute is the same. But you are not starting the day wondering if God is out there somewhere. You are starting it with a picture: Jesus kneeling with a towel, Jesus stopping for a woman in a crowd, Jesus cooking fish on a beach for friends who had let Him down.
When something hard happens at work, you do not have to guess how God feels about you. You have watched. You know how Jesus treated tired, scared, messed-up people, because you spent time looking.
That is what closer feels like. Not a mountaintop. Recognition. The feeling of knowing someone, not just knowing about them.
The good news in Philip’s story is that you do not have to earn the view. The door was already open. You just need a way to keep looking, a little every day, long enough for it to sink in. That daily part is where most people drift, and it is the part worth having help with. This piece on walking with Jesus daily gets into why a small daily rhythm beats a big weekly push.
A Path Built for Looking Closely
That is exactly what 30 Days Walking with Jesus is for. It walks through the life of Jesus in the Gospels one day at a time, in under 10 minutes a day. It is the scene-by-scene looking Philip was invited into, one scene a day.
You get 30 short devotional videos (each under 60 seconds), 30 full-chapter audio readings for the days you would rather listen than read, a complete PDF study guide with journal prompts, and 5 quick-reference scripture guides. The journal prompts are a natural place to keep asking Philip’s question: what is this showing me about God?
It is free. No payment, no card, no upsell, and it is yours forever on any device. The words of Jesus should not sit behind a paywall.
Questions People Are Asking
Q: How do I get closer to God if I feel distant?
A: Start by looking at Jesus, one small scene at a time. In John 14:9, when Philip asked to see God, Jesus answered, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Reading one short story from the Gospels each day and asking “what does this show me about what God is like?” turns a vague goal into a simple daily habit. Feeling distant is common, even among people who spent a long time near Jesus.
Q: What is the first step to getting closer to God?
A: Pick one short scene from the life of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and read it slowly. Then write down one word it shows you about God, such as patient, kind or honest, and talk to God about that one thing in plain words. Small and daily works better than big and occasional.
Q: Can you be close to Jesus and still feel far from God?
A: Yes. Philip, one of the twelve disciples, had followed Jesus since the start and still asked, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us” (John 14:8). Jesus answered that seeing Him was seeing the Father. The gap Philip felt was not about distance. It was about learning to recognize what he was already looking at.
Q: Does getting closer to God take a lot of time every day?
A: No. A few focused minutes with one Gospel story, one question and one short prayer is enough to begin. Consistency matters more than length, because closeness grows the way any friendship does: through regular time together, not occasional marathons.
