A brief look at my relationship with God

I told a friend of mine that I have a Blog now. "What's that?" he asked. I said it's an online journal, so anyone can have a look at what I'm thinking about. "Oh," he said, "that's a bit egocentric."
I'm afraid he's right. I don't know, maybe this can't work. We'll see. One problem is that everyone who might view this would know different things about me. So whatever I write, there will be some people who have heard it all before, and some who don't know what's going on. I'll try to compromise, but in the immortal words of Calvin, "a good compromise leaves everyone mad." (And of course I'm not sure if anyone will actually be interested in reading this anyway. But we'll give it a shot.) Maybe I'll just plunge right in with what I'm thinking of right now, and try to explain myself as I go.
It seems like the last 8 months or so have been dominated by the question of my "relationship" with God. I put relationship in quotes because I think it's a kind of a Christian buzzword. Almost, maybe, a metaphor. Relationship to me means hanging out with someone, seeing them face to face, and most of all talking to them. I don't do that with God. God seems to be separate from me, and this is quite confusing because it's so contrary to what I've been led to believe. I've only recently been exposed to Charismatic Christianity and the whole idea that I can be "Baptized in the Holy Spirit", and thus achieve some kind of deeper relationship with God. I grew up in a non-Charismatic Church, and we talked about how God's always with us and the Holy Spirit lives inside us and all this, but it's always been something intangible. Like you weren't expected to ever really interact with God, but just believe he was there even though it didn't seem that way. And I never really thought about this too much.
Just since September I've unexpectedly been introduced to several incredible charismatic Christians who have challenged my previous notions. The idea that I could have a real relationship with God is very appealing to me. I've been really seeking this for months now. I've prayed about it and I've thought about it all the time. I've come to believe that my longing for relationship with God is the deepest and strongest of all my longings. Stronger than my emotions, my personality, my morals. Stronger even than my sinful nature. Put simply, there's nothing I wouldn't do to be close to God. Which is kind of scary... maybe I'll touch on this later. Anyway, I've been longing for this for quite a while, and periodically becoming discouraged because I see no change. You should know that I'm extremely - even dangerously - skeptical about prayer. I really don't understand it, and I've never experienced anything I'd call an "answer to prayer", but I know this: when I pray, stuff happens. I mean praying that God will help me with some sin, or to love people, or whatever. It happens so slowly, so that I can't even see - much less feel - the change, but looking back months later, I can see that I've changed. Not that this isn't easily dismissable, but it just seems like when I pray about and want something, it happens. However, I've seen zero change in my relationship with God since the fall, and I've never prayed as long or as hard or wanted anything as badly as this. And this is discouraging. I've come to realize that I go in sort of cycles, where I'll become discouraged with my asking God to meet me, and then always someone will encourage me to stick with it, and I'll get back to longing and praying, and eventually become discouraged again. I get dragged back so easily, I think, because I really, really want to believe this is true, and to somehow, someday have a real relationship with God.
I should explain what I mean by "relationship with God", because people always ask me what I'm getting at. Basically, I'm looking for something tangible. A sense of his presence, or some kind of communication with him. (Communication means it goes two ways. Prayer is not communication. Prayer that gets some kind of response from God is communication.) I don't want to over-define this. I don't want to dictate to God how he must make himself know to me or talk to me. I'm not looking for some one-shot miracle or magic trick. I'm not looking for Heaven or Eden. I just want to be God's friend. Or son. Or slave. I don't care, pick whatever metaphor you like. I just want something real. The way I read my Bible, this is a reasonable thing to ask. Of course, it's quite possible that I'm reading my own preferred meaning into this, but I don't think so. Expain to me Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." What does this mean? How about Revelation 3:20 "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." What's going on here? What's the door? How do I hear his voice? What does it mean that he comes in and eats with me (and me with him)? These are a couple verses that confuse me. I actually rewrote them, according to my experience. Here's what they look like.

Here I am! I stand at the door and wait. If you would only knock on that door, I’d fling it wide open. I’d welcome you in, and eat with you, and you with me.

Ask and it will be withheld from you; seek and it will be in vain; knock all you want, but you'll never be let in. For everyone who asks is ignored; he who seeks cannot find what is hidden; and to him who knocks, the door will remain firmly locked, and he will be left cold and confused on the doorstep.

So that's pretty strait-forward, right? Nothing fancy; I just reversed them. The other one I did was the ending of the parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15, starting in about verse 20. Here's God's version. ;)

So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." So they began to celebrate.

I've never understood this. It's a metaphor, clearly, but of what? How does God run to us? How does he hug and kiss us? What are the robe, the ring, the fattened calf and the feast? This is how the story looks to me (I'm the older brother):

So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, he met his older brother working in the field. His brother greeted him warmly and welcomed him back to the family. “Though,” he said, “don’t expect to see Father any time soon. Oh it’s not that he won’t forgive you – they say he loves you very much – but he doesn’t see any of us very often. He stays in the house mostly, in a room with a locked door.” He looked wistfully towards the house. “I thought I saw him once, watching me through the window, but it was from a long way off, and I couldn’t tell if it was him. I don’t even really know what he looks like.” He turned back and smiled at his brother. “It’s good to see ya again bro. Here, you can work with me. I’ll show you the ropes.”
The younger brother frowned. “You’re… not angry with me? I mean, I screwed up big there. And you’ve always been the good one…”
“Hey, don’t worry. Daddy always taught us forgiveness. See, we get real good at following Dad’s instructions around here. If you work hard and do what he says – he wrote us a book, you know – you’ll become an awesome farmer. You can learn from me too. I’m not as good as Dad of course – they say no one ever farmed like him – but I’m learning to do things his way.”
“Will I ever get to see Dad?”
“Oh sure! We’ll all see him someday. And that, little brother, will make all our work worthwhile. We’ll have a feast like you’ve never seen, and we’ll be together, us and Dad. But no one knows when that will be. Maybe you’ve heard that this life is all about being with Dad. That’s not how it is. Mostly we work. It’s good work, and we get to talk to each other, but don’t you believe that stuff about a relationship with Dad.”
“I just thought I could talk to him… say I’m sorry.”
“You can certainly do that. I’ll take you to his room, and you can speak to him through the door. He’ll hear you, but don’t expect him to talk back.”
“He’s never even talked to you?”
“Not me. Some people – some of our older brothers, I mean – say he’s answered them. Some have sat by the door for years, and they say he’ll have whole conversations with them. I heard one story of a brother who was invited right into the room! Oh, but he was a good farmer.”
“It’s not dependent on you though. It’s all up to Dad. I know brothers who are better farmers than I’ll ever be, and they’ve never so much as heard him whisper. Others, it seems like he just… cares for them more. He’ll talk to them even though they can’t farm as well as I can.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“No, Dad’s not fair. But he’s good. He provides for us. He teaches us to farm. It’s a good life bro, and remember this: you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for him. Who knows, maybe you’ll be a lucky one. …If you ever get to talk to him, tell him I love him. Tell him I work hard, and I just can’t wait to meet him. I mean, I’ve told him myself, and I know he hears me, but… never mind. Look, it’s great to see you again bro. You work hard and stick with me. I think you’ll make a great farmer.”

I wonder if I'm taking the whole thing out of context. The point of the story isn't the relationship between the father and sons really, it's the forgiveness. But it always bugs me when I hear about the father running up and hugging the prodigal, or even having a conversation with the older brother. I like to say that I'm not interested in a robe or a ring or a fattened calf, but I'll take that kiss! Anyway, that's my perception of my relationship with God. I hope you'll respond. Send me an email, or post a response, or whatever. Do you agree? Disagree? I don't care if you can put together a smooth rebuttal or whatever. How does this make you feel? If I've talked to you about this before, tell me again.
I don't know what to say. It's a strain on me, this longing. I've been considering recently whether I should be trying to suppress it. I can do that sometimes: I can take an emotion or a desire that I dislike and slowly eradicate it. It doesn't go away completely, but it can be locked up. This sounds weird and wrong, that I would try not to long for God, but maybe that's the best thing I can do. I mean, I'd love to get married right now, but I can't; I'm not prepared for it. If I were to dwell on and feed that longing it would make me miserable, but if I can ignore and suppress it, I can focus more on what I have to do here and now. So maybe the same is true for my relationship with God. It doesn't really exist now, to my way of thinking, and maybe it never can until heaven. So maybe the best thing I can do is ignore it or suppress it. But that sounds so terrible.
What makes me sick is the idea that this is the way I'll be for the rest of my life. It's alright if it's part of a process, and I just have to work at it, but what if I can never have any interaction with God until heaven? What an awful way to live!
I don't know, it's so draining to even talk about this, because some people are like "Oh ya, keep at 'er, you'll get there", and others are like "Not this side of heaven." So I'm thinking that if I can really have tangible, real interaction with God, I'm willing to put any amount of time and energy into achieving that. But if it's not, then I'm wasting my time. I need to know. I don't need opinions on this, I need fact. I need the truth. But I guess that can only come from God, and he's not talking to me. Alright then, I'll take opinions.