Monday, April 12, 2004

Have you ever heard Christians speaking about God in ways that made it appear that we were better parents than God is?  I mean after all, which parent would at some point finally give up on a child and punish/torture them eternally with no hope of restoration?  Sounds strange.  It is not possible that we would be capable of a more enduring love and a deeper reaching forgiveness than God.  So what is it that causes so many, maybe ourselves to think this way?  If it can't be true, why do we act like it's true? Closer to home, do you ever feel like you're working harder at a relationship with God than He is?  Who does all the talking?  How can you tell if He's listening?  Does He ever wake up earlier in the morning to talk with you? I realize that these questions sound absurd, but for many of us the rationale of these questions are lurking inside our soul.  Why is that so?  And why do these questions and those like them touch us so personally? One reason I think is because deep down we know that God must be better than we can imagine Him.  And we are unwilling to let go of that hope.  That is a very good thing.  If we are able to reconcile ourselves to a God who is less of a parent than ourselves or a God who is relationally indifferent to us then it means that our souls have shut down to the truth and glory about life and about God.  The wonderful truth of God is supposed to create some painful questions if we are willing to accept that we may have inherited or developed a paradigm that is not congruent with who He really is. For example the perception that God created us to "do" something for Him.  As if He coundn't do anything He wanted a million times better than we could.  This kind of thinking leaves us feeling utilitarian and relationally insignificant to God; no matter how much we use the word relationship in our speech. Another example is that God sent Jesus to die, suffering the punishment He imposed, for our sins before He (God) was willing to be gracious to us.  In other words in is proposed that there is a legal requirement that must be satisfied before God is willing to forgive us and accept us. Whether or not we dwell or even think about these kinds of things it is a given that our (western) culture is strongly influenced by that line of thinking. What if all these paradims are just dead wrong?  And what if they are part of the foundation that our notions of God, life and ourselves are resting on? How might that influence the way we relate to God?  How might that influence the way we think about ourselves?  How might that affect things like our desire to pray or share our insights about God with others?  Do we really want to pray to someone who says they are interested in us but views us as a functional object rather than a real person?  Do we want to introduce our friends to someone like that?    6:28:52 AM

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