In my twenties and thirties, my image of
God looked very much like that of most other conservative Christian young men with whom I
associated. We gave him the mindset of a
stern, mostly mad God, one who was ready to zap us for the first miss-step or
wrong thought or deed.
He was not a smiling God. He never laughed. He never even chortled. His voice was booming, and would rattle the
dishes in every house within our town if He got too upset with us.
How have you created God?
We viewed people from other churches as
suspect. Their God couldn't be nearly as
great as our God; after all, our God was THE one true God.
As time has passed, my concept of God has
changed, thankfully. He is a more ecumenical
God. I've even allowed God to love some
of those we once thought lesser of. You
know the type – the down-n-out crowd, the street people - even drunks and addicts,
and others, who have chosen paths far different from the ones I've chosen.
Can God really love a prostitute, a
gay/lesbian? How about a Muslim or a Buddhist?
And don’t get me started on
Catholics.
How have you created God?
I ran across this quote recently. It is a telling declaration on our ability to
fashion God in our own image.
“You can tell you've created God
in your own image when He
hates the same people you do.”
(At the moment I don’t know who gave us
this quote, but it rings true.)
How have you created God? With what character traits have you lauded
him? With what limits have you shackled
him?
I’ll close with this.
OUCH!
Sort of reminds me of this:
“God so
loved the whole world
that He
gave Jesus Christ, His son …”
(John
3:16)
The WHOLE world.
P Michael
Biggs
Offering
Hope
Encouragement
Inspiration
One Word
at a Time
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