At what age did you first begin to seek God in some way or to sense His Presence at work in your life?  Be careful how you answer that.  Try not to confuse the teaching of others with your own inner awareness or heart’s cry.
One of my earliest memories is of my mother talking to me about God.  I must have been about 3.  I had gotten a splinter in my hand while trying to use an old step ladder to get into a tree.  I had already been told not to climb the tree, and like every good little boy, I obeyed so long as I thought I was being watched.

But out in the yard one day, all alone, I saw the perfect opportunity to conquer the old tree.  A short step ladder was already near the tree.  The temptation was too great, so I maneuvered the ladder over to the trunk and started up.  I was close to stepping over to the tree itself, where it split off into two main branches, when a splinter from the old ladder slid right into my finger.

The pain made me forget all about my adventure.  I stood on the ladder and cried loudly for emergency assistance.  Mom came out the back door and hauled me into the house, where she located the tiny splinter, treated and then sealed the wound with a Band-Aid.  While she worked she talked.

I learned that God was always watching over me, and that He sometimes punishes little boys when they do the wrong thing.  But she also conveyed something much more powerful in the little lesson.  She told me that God often punishes us with little things, like the little splinter, to protect us from greater harm, like breaking a leg or a neck.   She explained how it was far better for me to get wounded on the way up the ladder than for me to get high in the tree where a bad fall could really hurt me bad.

That moment, as I said, remains with me to this day.  The teaching I got is central to what I have believed about God for decades.

But as a small child, God remained a great mystery to me.  I remember lying on my back in the grass, staring up into the clouds and blue sky, and wondering about God.  Was He really there?  Could He see and hear me?  Would I ever see Him?  What did He look like?

God never made a personal and direct impact on my thinking until I was about 10.  He called me to Himself while I was in a revival meeting.  I resisted the call.  A week or so later, when I did go up to confess my faith and to join the church, there was nothing going on inside.  Not until I was 16 or so, did I have any “experience” with God again.  That happened out in the middle of a West Texas wilderness , when I first realized that I was not ready to die, not ready to meet God.

Yet there were prayers before that.  I remember crying out to God during troubled times.  And always, God seemed to have heard me.  I say that not because of some feeling I got while praying, but because I always seemed to get what I asked for.

God begins His great work of grace in us while we are young, perhaps even before we are born.  And He builds upon that work very carefully and thoroughly.  We may not see it or feel it or know anything about it, but God is at work.  At key times, He gives us specific lessons and directions and instruction.  Signs from God, so to speak, to help shape our journey.  And when we are ready, He calls us in very clear and specific ways to Himself.

We love Him, the Bible says, because He first loved us.  And I now know that we seek Him because He first sought us.  We call upon Him because He has been calling for us.

Contact with God is always the result of His long-standing invitation.