Have you ever read the Bible?
This may take some time; more than I'm inclined to take at the moment. Anyway, here goes for a start:
There are many images of God in the Bible, and no doubt you've made your own selection. If we begin with the god of Isaiah 40: v 15 to the end of the chapter, the god for whom the "nations of the earth are as grasshoppers" - is this the god with whom you claim some sort of 'personal relationship'? There are words of comfort and encouragement at the beginning and ending of that chapter, but they are directed to his 'chosen people', and do not suggest the cosy arrangement that you appear to profess. The god of Isaiah 45 goes even further in emphasising this impersonal 'otherness'. There are throughout the scriptures images of God as a shepherd to his sheep, but maybe any suggestions of 'relationship' here might be lowering the tone.
The first chapter of the Bible itself establishes the transcendental picture of God, and if the Documentary Hypothesis is at all correct, then the author who wrote this is the same as the one who wrote most of Leviticus. This would appear to be a god who wishes to bore the arse of all his worshippers with a ludicrous bucketful of finickety laws.
The situation gets worse when we get a little further into the Bible - do you really want to boast of a 'relationship' with the murderous thug of a deity represented in the Book of Joshua? Or the vile psychopath of Numbers 31, who gave orders to Moses to slay all the Midianites, men women and boys, but to rape the young virgin girls?
On a cooler level, how would you have a 'relationship' with the nebulous, distant god of Ecclesiastes?
"AH! (I hear you say) - "but I'm talking about
Jesus"
Well, there are many Jesuses in the New Testament.
I suppose you could get some sense of God wanting a relationship with each individual from Revelation 3:10 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock". I think I said enough for most people when I mentioned the
Book of Revelation. You have the problem of reconciling the fire-breathing monster of most of the book with gentler images. I suggest the author was confused, if not drugged.
The synoptic gospels offer no consistency either. I'm not sure I'd want a personal relationship with a deluded apocalyptic prophet who was convinced the end of the world would occur in the lifetime of some of his listeners, and who was forever casting people into outer darkness, telling the ones who disagreed with him to 'depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and all his angels'
There is of course, the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount - but does that speak of 'relationship'? It speaks of comfort for the afflicted, certainly (as did deutero-Isaiah), but that is surely not quite the same thing.
Then there is the Jesus of John and in part St Paul, with his 'elect' (you perhaps are one of this select band?) Perhaps we have to be part of the elect to get on personal terms with God, but the original texts do not convince that there is any specific way of going about this.
Enough already.
