Seeing God

Are you willing to see who God really is?

God doesn’t come to us unadorned! Who we think God is gets impacted by parents, friends, church, the public square, as well as our own experience. We have to question this image periodically and peel from it anything that isn’t true. How do we do this?

I look for the things that bug me about God. I think God leads us in stripping from Him all that is not true. So when I feel distant from Him because of _____, there is a disturbance in me, and that disturbance is the Holy Spirit waving His arms saying, “Hey, this distance isn’t coming from Me!”

We can put all sorts of “distance reasons” between ourselves and God. We can take the negative judgments from people of authority and smear them onto God. We can find ourselves thinking God doesn’t want us around because we didn’t try hard enough, we failed at this or that, we’re not “accomplished,” or we harbor feelings of hatred, jealousy, and anger.

“I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers, neither height nor depth nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

So, even if our own mind thinks there is a chasm between us and God, in reality, God is right HERE.

Start there.

Reflection

Imagine yourself and God in the same environment. What is in between?

Prayer

Dear God, guide me as I try to imagine who you are and what kind of proximity with You I feel is truly reflective of my perceptions. I am sometimes afraid of You, sometimes mad at You, sometimes even dismissive! I’m sorry! Help me to wade through all of this and commit myself to seeing You as best I can. Amen.