'Why should I think that God is relational?'
A question similar to this was brought up on my school's bulletin-board forum tonight. Someone was wanting to know how to convince a deist that God is relational. The short answer I think I maybe should have offered is that a better approach might rather be to seek to show the person that God is relational by relating to him in the way God would.
The long answer I instead offered is (essentially) below.
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I recently talked with a close friend about this. His perspective was somewhat different but somewhat similar: 'Isn't it kind of arrogant to assume that God is like us in the way of being personal?'
In my opinion, the highest good of life is relationships. That is, the most significant thing about anyone is the personal connections he or she has with other people. Are they strong connections? Are they weak? Are they many, few, close, distant, healthy, unhealthy, etc.? That's why communities are so important and isolation-except-through-internet lifestyles are so dangerous (yet common). Along the same lines, a higher, more mature intellect should (but doesn't always) result in a greater ability to connect with people, however different they might be. Like how Paul said he wanted to become all things to all people, or in other words, he wanted to find a way to relate to anyone and everyone.
All that to say that I cannot imagine God to be impersonal or otherwise non-relational in any way that would not result in a reduction of the character I already believe Him to have. Certainly God's mind is higher than ours. Based on my personal experience of close intimacy with another human being as the highest, most meaningful good of life as a human being, I can only believe that God must be relational and that He wants to know me and everyone else more closely than we can imagine. And, if that's the case, it makes sense that He would become a person and look for us, etc. In my opinion, for God not to be relational would lessen His status as God.
Of course, I suppose that's not really a 'scientific' proof in the sense that the data used to reach that conclusion can't be measured in units, but I think it conforms to honest logic. It might be worth asking your deist friend why he has trouble relating to a personal, relational God. Perhaps he has experienced painful relationships that have caused him think it's better (safer?) not to connect with other people and that God must be the same way. Or maybe he's been hurt by 'cool' people who haven't wanted to relate to him because he's not cool enough, and he assumes that God follows that pattern too: cool repels uncool, high-status repels low-status. If you've read Searching For God Know What by Donald Miller, you can probably see where I've gotten a lot of these ideas. And, of course, pray for him, which I'm sure you're doing.
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I hope that helped.