Your relationship with God as an individual is greatly influenced by your personal perception of who he is to you. If all you know about God is based on what other people have told you, you may have difficulty trusting him during your trying times.
I have come to realize that most Christians' perception of the God they claim to know and serve is based on other people's perception of God - not from their own personal findings. I heard a lady praying aloud some days ago and she kept shouting aloud "the God of Bishop ×××, please hear me now and grant me this request..." and i kept wondering if she doesn't understand that God almighty that resides in the heavens of heavens is for everyone that believes in him and puts their trust in him.
Some of us are struggling in our relationship with God because we don't have a personal connection with him. You personal perception of God almighty whom you claim to worship is what creates that special connection with him and gives you the consciousness that he's always with you, but when you don't have that personal understanding of who God is to you it becomes difficult for you to feel that special connection to him even after confessing him as your lord and saviour.
Whatever anyone else has told you about God almighty is that person's own perception of God, it is now left for you to find out about what that person has told you about God through his word and create your own perception about who you think he is to you. But most of us just stops at what we heard someone else's told us God is, that is why when we're sometimes asked who God is to us or why we're serving and devoting ourselves to him, some of us find it hard to give a reasonable response because we're yet to have a personal understanding of who the God we claim to worship is to us.
Listen, it's your knowledge of who God is that helps you stand firm when the stormy wind of life blows your way. You can't overcome the battles of life by holding unto another man's perception of his God that he/she told you about, what is your own perception about the God that you choose to devote your life to?
"They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the words of their testimony..." not by the words of another man's testimony. So if you must grow in your Christian faith and stand strong in the faith, you must have your own personal understanding of who the God you claim to serve is to you as this is what will help you in relating with him better - mostly during your low moments. But you can only do this through constant studying of the word of God.
So i'm asking you right now, who is God to you?