Thought on God...

It sometimes happens with myself that I become too comfortable with God.  As some might ease into formulaic conversation, or even no dialog at all with someone to which they are close, so my relationship with my Creator becomes lax at various points in my life.  Once we have reached a comfort level or familiarity with friends, family, or significant others, it can become increasingly difficult to maintain interesting or informative interactions in which we are getting to know these people on a deeper level than before.  It is sometimes much easier to settle at a certain point and fall into habitually meaningless discussions.  Relationships are work, and the one we have with our Heavenly Father is no exception.

I sometimes hear nonchalance occur in others when they adopt a "man upstairs" or "Jesus is my buddy" type of attitude.  This is a dangerous way to approach Christ because it a breeds a smugness that will most certainly affect the way in which one views the world and treats others.  Their approach will not be based in love.

Jesus is our friend, our father, our counselor, and so on, but it is also of utmost importance to retain a healthy veneration of our Lord.  Let me clarify.  Many in the "church" attempt to scare others or use fright as a tactic to "win" souls over to Christ.  This is not at all what I am suggesting.  As a child loves, yet respectfully fears his father, so should we hold the same reverence for our Lord and Savior. 

Everything we know about this life comes from ourselves and others that we allow into our orbit.  Throughout our existence, the way we perceive the world is largely based upon firsthand experience.  The runner-up however, is what we choose to accept or reject from other sources.  Things we see in photographs.  Things we see in films or on television.  Things we read.  Things we hear in songs.  Things we hear from friends and acquaintances.  As we grow older, and hopefully more discerning, we check all incoming information against our own life experience that we know to be true.  If something we observe or hear rings false, we will most likely reject it.  Perception is shaped by information and opinions, and then either solidified as truth or obliterated as false in one's own mind, based on our specific experiences.

If a child has only ever read about fire but never seen its effect on a pile of wood, he can only imagine the situation based on what information he has gathered.  However, when that child finally is witness to a bonfire, everything to which he was exposed through pictures, words, etc. is now confirmed, but with much added dimension.  He can see that the fire burns the wood relentlessly until it is a pile of ash.  He learns not to stand too close to the flame, because the heat intensifies when approached.  The scent of burning wood is apparent for miles.  The eyes sting and water if smoke gets in them.  All these things the child might have seen in photos, read in books, heard from others, but it is all solidified as truth for himself this moment forward based on life, or rather, personal experience.

It is quite hard in this day and age to imagine that one would have no concept of a foreign land across the ocean.  This was the case at one time though.  Since the advent and integration of the internet and technology into our daily lives, cultural barriers have been broken and foreign lifestyles that were once considered strange or different, are now viewed as more acceptable and normal.  Someone who has never been to England, Japan, or Egypt can now have a fairly realistic idea of what to expect if they make the venture, thanks to the vast amount of information available.  Even films, music, and art can provide expectations which lead to a perception of what a place or experience might be like.

It would be completely absurd to say that we do not know for sure whether or not England actually exists just because we have never set foot on its soil.  There is substantial evidence, in the form of photographs, firsthand accounts of travelers, hundreds of years of history and documentation, for the existence of the nation.  Of course we could choose to be frightfully ignorant and suggest the possibility that England does not exist because we have yet to visit the land ourselves, that all the evidence to the contrary is a lie, that the stories of those who have been there are a fabrication. But that would be ridiculous.  It is far simpler to choose to accept the word of others, accept the photos of the London cityscape even though we have never experienced it for ourselves.  It is not entirely difficult to imagine that there are many other cities we have not seen, similar to our own, that people inhabit.

Everything we know about the world comes from theory and influence of opinion, confirmed or denied by personal experience.

"Being in love is like Red Velvet Cake," says someone.  I dislike cake, but I know love.  So being in love is something entirely different for me.  Or perhaps I like cake but have not experienced love.  I now have expectations and when I finally fall for someone and it is not reciprocated, or the relationship falls apart after a time, love was not cake for me at all, but sour apples.  Experience shapes perception.

Everything that the believer knows about God, comes from the Bible.  From creation and the structure of marriage & family, to the plan of salvation through the death & resurrection of Jesus Christ, the introduction of the Holy Spirit, the second coming, judgment for sin, eternal life, Satan, good & evil, the Ten Commandments, and so on are all ideas and sides of God introduced by a collection of writings by men, who were divinely inspired.  I have to say that it does take some amount of faith to accept this, but really no more than receiving a historian's account of our nation's birth and history.  Or accepting the existence of a country you've never been to.

Here is my point though: If we were to remove God from the context of the Bible, then we really know nothing more of Him than we know about the furthest depths of outer space.  Let me phrase it this way:  Describe who or what God is without using anything contained in the Bible.  This would be extremely difficult.  Pretty much everything we know comes from what God chose to reveal to us through His word.  If we remove Him from the context of that, we don't really know who, or what God is.

We were made in the image of God.  We are not bodies that require souls, but rather, we are souls that need bodies in order to temporarily exist in this world.  Souls are eternal, our bodies are not.  And it is in this likeness that we reflect the smallest fraction of our great & awesome Creator.  God is not simply a man or woman or spirit.  He is all these, and yet none of them.  All these terms and ideas were invented and defined so that our finite minds might grasp the tiniest insight into the innumerable sides of God.

Who is God?  What is God, truly?  We really don't know except for what He reveals to us through His word and personal revelation.  We are not even capable of fathoming something unless it is already based on a preexisting object, color, or idea.  "Light be," said Yahweh.  A concept that had never previously existed, suddenly was.  That is the essence of true creation.  No influences.  No preconceptions.  He took nothing, and made something.  That is a frightening and humbling thought that causes me to bow my head in reverence whenever I become too careless in my relationship with Christ. 

We will never, ever wholly understand the infinite depth & complexity of God while on this earth.  We will spend all of eternity digging deeper and deeper and still never reach the bottom. But what a blessing it is for Him to allow us to barely scrape the surface of His being and His love through the Bible and a personal relationship with Him.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. -Romans 5: 7-8