What is God like?

This might seem like a 101 blog, a bit too basic and simple, but for some of us this is something that we keep returning to, and need to revisit.

The question is a simple one, what is God like? Or perhaps slightly more nuanced “what does God think about me?”

We often spend a lot of time debating “does God exist” but very little asking “but what is God like?”

The reason I think this question matters so much, is, I believe, for me personally, because I spent (and spend) too much of my life debilitated by a wrong view of God.

I remember once returning to a Church that my dad used to lead and hearing the new Vicar “preach the gospel” and I felt really angry and upset.  The word Gospel means good news –and this didn’t sound like good news- and I looked around at the congregation who were my church family who I loved and I didn’t like them hearing this.

The sermon was basically saying that because of our sinful nature we are “objects of wrath” and “enemies of God” our hearts are “desperately wicked” and that unless to turn from our sins in repentance to Christ we are “dead in our sins” and without hope for all eternity.

You might notice the bits that are in inverted commas are quotes from the Bible, and in one sense this probably sounds like fairly standard evangelical belief and yet for me its emphasis was all wrong, and actually this theory ends up with Jesus saving us from God and the cross can feel like “throwing a steak at wild animal so you can slip past unscathed” which doesn’t feel like a helpful way to understand to cross.

I am not saying that sin is not serious, nor am I not saying that the cross is not a wonderful way by which God forgives, reconciles and restores us, but I am saying that this might not be the most helpful way of seeing either ourselves or God.

It has been said that scripture comforts the afflicted and inflicts the comfortable, the problem for me as a child and teenager growing up it sometimes felt like some ways of interpreting scripture felt like it ‘inflicted the afflicted’  -I felt pretty ravaged with guilt and constantly like God was displeased and angry at my sin, and my attempts to be holy failed, and I felt like a rubbish Christian. I wanted to give it all up but was scared I’d end up in hell if I did. As I thought about the start of my Christian life I’m not sure if it was the love of God that compelled me or the fear of hell that caused me to “pray the prayer of salvation” and used to wonder whether I was following Jesus out of love for him or out of some form of eternal self preservation.  I think that this story actually might be one that resonates with people, as I wonder was this your story too?

It probably felt too that there were some things that if you even thought about it you were awful, and as a teenager suddenly your body is hit with hormones and massive amounts of guilt and shame too.

So, is there a different way of looking at the Gospel, a better and more biblical way perhaps?

I think it needs to start first of all with the question we started with “what is God like?” or maybe “what does God think about me?”

Sometimes it is the little words that really matter, and it is one word is a verse that we all probably know really well, it is “For God SO loved the world…” –God didn’t just love the world, but rather he “so loved the world”.  Scripture tells us that “God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” –it does not say “God feels love” or even “God is loving” but rather that God is the very embodimentand personification of love; incarnation can be translated as “with skin on” and so I believe it is fair to say “Jesus is love with skin on”. Jesus says: “If you have seen me you have seen the Father” –Jesus is the ultimate revelation of what God is like.

There was a hymn by Stuart Townsend that said: “It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished” but I’m not sure that this is true, the cross is God choosing to die for a people who had gone off and rejected him, and so it was his love that held him there.  The cross speaks of God’s self giving love. The cross speaks of a love that is greater than our sin and fallen-ness. 

In the film “Saving Private Ryan” the Captain dies and says to Ryan “earn this” which breaks Ryan, we see him as an old man wondering if he has been “good enough” to be worthy of the sacrifices made to save him. This I believe is the opposite of what Jesus says to us, it is a free gift one we could not afford, and reveals a key word in Christianity, I would say THE key word in Christianity, and that is “GRACE”.

I remember when I was Vicaring and starting Street Pastors a girl saw my dog collar and said “I’ve had three different kids from three different blokes what does your God think about that?” –my heart sank, I didn’t want to screw it up and say something that would make someone clearly already hurt and hurting feel worse, and did an arrow prayer “help me God not be an idiot”. I spotted a tattoo on her wrist that said “Gracie” and asked “is that your daughter?” and went onto expain that grace meant God’s undeserved love and goodness to her. It was only a brief moment but suddenly I believe she saw God rather than condemning her but caring about her.

Jesus came amongst us “full of grace and truth” –I believe the word order matters came first with grace which is underserved love- and then truth about a liberating way of living differently and in a way of wholeness and fullness of life God’s way in relationship with him.

Most of us do not need to be told we are sinners, deep down we know, what we need to hear is that we are loved and can be forgiven.  We don’t need to be told we are lost –we feel that deeply- but to know that there is hope and that in Jesus the lost can be found.  We don’t need to made to feel guilty by a sermon but often need to hear that in Christ there is no condemnation.

The Gospel starts with Genesis 1, the idea that God who is eternally in a relationship of  love creates the world, the universe, you.

The doctrine that talks about “the total depravity of man” rushes to chapter three in Genesis rather than starting at chapter one. God made people in his image. We are created in the image of God. We are declared good/very good, and we have God breathing his breath into us. Yes we sinned and yes sin is serious, but we remain image bearers of God, just as our beautiful world although broken still reveals God, so broken human-beings can still shine out the glory of the one who made them. We maybe broken sinners but we are dearly loved children of God, who are loved so much that even when we turned away God did not reject us, but came and met us in the person of Jesus and died for us,

God’s creation and the cross of Christ speak loudly about our identity than the distorting lies that sin whispers in our ears.

I know that sometimes people get pompous (“aren’t I a good person” etc), sometimes have a sense of entiltlement and even take grace for granted –sometimes I do to- and I know that is why scripture has verses like this that are meant to challenge us and provoke us to realise the wonder of God’s grace and goodness.

So, what does God think about you? In the words of Philip Yancey “God loves you as you are, but loves you too much to let you stay that way” –the cross does speak of the problem but it points much more to the solution a God who rescues and redeems, a God who loves beyond our comprehension.

What does God think about you? He adores you, he loves you,  he rejoices over you with singing, you are the apple of his eye, precious and honoured in his sight…

He loves you too much to allow sin and death keep us and him apart.  He loves us with an everlasting love and has made a way that we can come back into his arms of love. Indeed the revelation Jesus chooses to show us of God is of a Father who loves so extravagantly that he runs to meet his child whilst he was still a long way off…

There are days when my thinking reverts, there are days when my heart refuses to accept how much he loves me, and times I cannot get my head around it either.

It is good news, even though I don’t deserve it I am loved and can be forgiven and God calls me his child.

God is not rolling his eyes at me failing he is rooting for me and wanting me to thrive… And you to thrive too.

Not another New Year blog?!

At the start of a new year I’m worried that this will be just another one of those blogs that is full of “wishful thinking” that when I re-read in mid Feb I feel slightly embarrassed by!

Being something of a dreamer that wants to change the world I am often reminded of the serenity prayer said at AA meeting “God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

Yet, I began to wonder “what is actually changeable?” as I thought about this I came to the conclusion that I can change myself in some ways; implement new habits and break old ones, investing in those positive relationships and feeding our heart and mind with books, blogs, podcasts, programmes that help to shape me into the person that I believe God created me to be. 

Where do I need to see progress what practical, manageable, realistic steps can I take that can actually help me do my life differently? And am I really able to do them and is this something that God is calling me to do –or are these expectations that someone else is trying to impose on you?

As I thought about these expectations and often the cruel words that accompany failing these I thought about this year being one of liberation and freedom, being free to be me.

Knowing that there are some things aren’t changeable. After 43 years I will always be clumsy and probably will never be a dancer at the royal ballet, and perhaps this year it is worth liberating ourselves from those unrealistic expectations that we (or others) put on ourselves. 

Yet, this I worry that this could easily be a cop out statement, as even areas of struggle and weakness can see improvement –just as a physio or an OT!

This is where the beauty of the serenity prayer comes through as it involves wisdom to discern what is uncomfortable truths we don’t like and we want to hide out in our comfortable familiarity of sin and brokenness and what could be areas we can experience some form of change and transformation within.

Which made me ask: “Do I confuse difficult with impossible?”  “Uneasy with undoable?”

 I then thought, do I actually want to change? I was struck by the story of the man who was crippled sat by the gate known as beautiful whom Jesus healed (John 4) and asks him “do you want to be healed?”  Had the guy become so used to his familiar ways and identity that he wasn’t able to live a new, different and transformed life?

I was reminded of a saying by John Wimber “Lord, send revival, start with me” as I think the problem is we do not start with changing ourselves but seek to influence other people. Yet, for the Christian things start with us, with our hearts and minds, with us inviting God’s Holy Spirit into our lives afresh with that idea of “search me O God and know my heart, see if there is any evil way within me” (Ps. 139).

So, as I start a new year, I realise afresh that “who” I am actually matters more than “what I do” because it is out of out “who” that our “what” flows.

It is easy to “do” things, these opportunities present themselves readily, but the bigger “being” question is harder, and it is easy to loose our identity in what we do rather than who we are –certainly we can get our value and affirmation in that easily.

In many ways this blog is more about questions than answers, about foundations rather than walls, and yet if we want to be different and want to build a different world then it starts with the uncomfortable place of working on our foundations from which everything else flows.

So, the start of 2021, who am I? Who has God called me to be? What is he saying? What do I need to strengthen and what do I need to change? What are reasonable and unreasonable expectations that I/others have placed on me and how can I negociate and navigate these better in this new year?

I think the reason why so many of these new year blogs end up being a bit embarrassing is that we often like to work on the accessories and the bits that show, rather than digging deeper and working where it is painful rather than superficial, but it is here that the lasting change happens. Yet as we confront ourselves in this places –often scary and vulnerable- we do so with the Holy Spirit who walks and works with us and with a God whose love for us never falters or waivers no matter what we uncover. So, this year as I begin to crank out a wish list of things I want to be and the things I want to do, I realise that I need to ask God to accompany me deeply to ensure that real change happens rather than just a little cosmetic airbrushing and that none of us end 2021 as we are now but instead have been refined, restored, renewed and refreshed looking, doing and being more as we were intended to be by our loving creator God.