An excerpt from my book, The Art of Listening Prayer:

Evangelical Christians claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Yet how many actually do have a relationship with him that is personal? Relationships involve give and take, mutual interaction and dialogue. Marriages that lack this grow stale. If I relate to my wife by giving her a daily list of things to do or by telling her about my thoughts and never ask her what her thoughts or feelings are, then our relationship becomes impersonal. I will know little about her. She will not know that I care about her. To have a personal relationship with my wife, I must listen to her as well as speak.

Our relationship with God should work the same way. Jeremiah 33:3 says, 'Call to me and I will answer you.' (emphasis added). God wants us to give him our praises, our struggles, and our questions. And in return he also wants to give to us counsel, encouragement, and consolation. This interaction becomes the fabric of our relationship. The more frequent and honest our give-and-take with Jesus, the more personal it becomes.

This is understandably uncomfortable. God may be personal, but he is also different from us in some critical ways. He is invisible. He is transcendent; that is, he is far above our understanding. He is all-powerful. He is completely holy.

So, while we may look for give and take in our relationship with Jesus, oftentimes the main thing we hear is silence. It is no wonder Christians struggle to make their relationship with him a truly personal one. Silence in conversation usually feels awkward.

While it's true that God tells us over and over in his word to seek him and to love him, we must suspend our expectations of how he will respond to us. As we seek to know God personally, we must not lose sight of his transcendence.

Jesus wants us not to just know about him, but to actually have a deep, personal relationship with him - to know him and to be known by him. John 17: 3 says, "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." If you look at the Greek origin of the word translated "knowing," it refers to the most intimate of relationships. He wants our relationship with him to be a deep and intimate.