December 9, 2007

The God Box

The God Box is a box of our own making. We go to church, and read the bible, and then we get selective eyesight and hearing. We hear what we like about God, and create this box. It is the definition of what we want God to be. So we start out our new lives of faith, with this strong identity of God. Who he is, and what his motivations are. Well, astoundingly, they almost ALWAYS match exactly with what each person's view of the world is. So, with this new faith, and new God, they start off on a new life.

They start off by living how they think that they should. Part of that is almost always going to church and listening to that denominations version of God. If it does not match their own image close enough, they try different churchs until it matches close enough. Thus, solidifying their belief of God seen in a certain way. The problem comes, when they do too much of the right thing. For if they study and truly try to understand and comprehend the scriptures, the God they find there does not match that box they made early on.

Then I hear a statement like this, "I don't know if I can believe in a God like that?" Or, "why do bad things happen to me when I try to follow God the best that I can?" Or, "my God would never do that." This is what happens when the God of the Muslims, the Jews, and the Christians doesn't fit into the box that we created, and fell in love with long ago. It is then that we begin to doubt.

Since the God we find does not fit in to our box, we wonder what our faith is really based on. Do I really want to know an unchanging God that said adultery should be punished by stoning? What is God really like? Is he really triune? Are they all separate? How can it be the same God from the New Testament to the old? All these thoughts, doubts, and lots of other things creep in. Testing faith. Causing crisis of faith.

To me it comes down to one simple thing. Am I willing to do for God, what he did for me?

That is to love and accept God, just the way he is. Just as he loves and accepts us, just the way we are.

What do you think?

7 comments:

faintnot said...

Am I willing to accept God as He is...Yes I am, for no other god went out of his way for me the way the One and Only Living God did...He is Who He is...I am what He is making me...
Thanks, Nate, for sharing your heart this morning...
Linda

faintnot said...

Am I willing to accept God as He is...Yes I am, for no other god went out of his way for me the way the One and Only Living God did...He is Who He is...I am what He is making me...
Thanks, Nate, for sharing your heart this morning...
Linda

faintnot said...

oops, it is too early for me to be at the keyboard!

One Voice of Many said...

But....
how do you accept someone that you can't really know? You can think that you know him... but isn't that your own version of your box of him?


Michelle

Nate said...

Thanks Linda,
I am glad that is spoke to you.

Michelle,
God is not unlike people. We have many friends in the world. Each one, we know in our own way. For me, I had golfing buddies, work friends, pool league friends, neighbors, etc. Have you ever found out something about a friend you loved, and said, "in all of the years I have known you, I never knew that about you." God is like that too. We know him in one way, then something else is revealed to us about him. Did you then reject the friend because of what you found out, or did it make you closer? I still find out things about my wife, and we have been together for 17years. My grandfather wrote some memoires, I have known him all my life, and I found out a lot about him. That is what a growing relationship does. God just asks that you get to know him better. That is about it.

Anonymous said...

i think we go about the relationship far too cerebrally.

it is one thing to use our brains for conjecture and processing of the data that gets thrown at us from simply living. (which i, of course, LOVE to do...) but there is a marked difference between knowing a person and knowing about them. if the only way we know god is to know things "about him" then i don't think we'll ever know him or see him.

because he is spirit. he is not in the physical realm. he is behind it. you will never see god.

i believe god is experienced by everyone. but only witnessed by those to whom that reality has been revealed. and it hasn't been revealed to everyone yet.

i still think, however, that just because it hasn't been revealed to everyone yet, does not mean that it won't. so i try to approach every person i meet as though they are already a brother or sister whether they are currently aware of it or not.

Valorosa said...

That's a great way to greet people ... yes, I think that is the right thing to do, Jon.