While a person may not know God, rest assured that God most certainly knows every one of His children intimately. As the psalmist writes of the Creator: " For it was you formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Ps 139:13.
When Jesus was on earth, He taught us to call God "Father", and God is indeed the perfect Parent. He loves and guides all His children, hoping that they will make good choices, and thus attain eternal happiness in heaven.
You may be wondering: "How can God guide those persons who do not even know Him?" Don't underestimate the Almighty. He has ways of making Himself known to even the most primitive, isolated people.
Consider the natives of North America before the coming of the Europeans. They already knew and honored the "Great Spirit", because God had revealed Himself to them. How can God communicate or talk to those who did not know Him?
1. God speaks through nature.
When one sees a beautiful sunset, a newborn baby, or reflects on the variety of plant and animal species which inhabit the earth, one knows instinctively that such splendor and complexity cannot have come about by accident. The seasons follow a cycle, each planet revolves in an orbit, plants and animals are endowed with the means to reproduce themselves. The natives deduced that there must be an all-wise Planner who had arranged these matters to benefit humans. They realized that humans must be dear to the heart of the Planner.
2. God speaks through conscience.
Even those with no spiritual training know through instinct that it is wrong to steal, to kill or to lie. In the Old Testament God promised: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts..." Jer 31:33.
Unfortunately, conscience can become warped or silenced by frequent, deliberate wrongdoing.
3. God speaks through experience.
When the natives asked for rain and did a rain dance, their request were often granted. If this were not so, the practice would have soon died out. Thus, these primitive people learned that the "Great Spirit" hears and answers prayers. The natives devised other ceremonies and customs by which they honored God, as they understood Him.
4. God speaks through other people.
In time, missionaries came from Europe to instruct the Indians. They refined their knowledge, filled in the gaps and taught about the coming of Jesus. Where possible, the missionaries tried to incorporate the traditional native practices into the new Christian spirituality.
In the New Testament, the evangelist Matthew relates that, before returning to His heavenly Father, Jesus gave the Apostles and their successors "The Great Commission":
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Mt 28: 19-20
Imperfect as we are, Christians are still working to accomplish this mission. However, God, the perfect Parent, precedes His human messengers by speaking lovingly and gently to the minds and hearts of His children who, as yet, do not know Him as well as He would wish.
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