June 7th, 2020 1:48 AM
I have spent since 1977 trying to understand who God is. The stories about God are too diverse. His actions are too far apart in character. He is the God of love, mercy, and kindness in the New Testament and the God of war, destruction, and vengeance (or judgement) in the Old Testament. My understanding is not able to understand. It is frustrating not being able to know what He is doing and why He is doing it. Can I even know? Common sense, logic, science, history and personal experience all speak of His existence. I can not deny that He is. That much I am sure of. And the Christian faith is the best one and the most documented one out there. The God of the New Testament, the God of mercy and love is the God for me.
But when we look into the history of God, the fullness of God, the current allowances of God, my concept of Him become disturbing. Who wouldn’t like the God of Jesus who speak of love and caring for the poor and the children? But who can like the God of vengeance who orders entire peoples to be wiped out, allowing for hell and the populating of it or the past and current (as well as future) atrocities, too many to be name, to occur?
And yet it is this whole complete God of the Old Testament and the New Testament we are asked, expected, and required to love. I can not take one aspect of God and love Him for it. My love would be shallow and incomplete. It would not sustain me for the lifetime I need it to. When the hard saying of Jesus began turning the disciples away, He asked the apostles if they would turn away also. As I see more and more of the attributes and works of God, will I turn away?
But where would I turn to? I have no other place to go. I have not other god to take His place. The best of God(I speak of my understanding of Him, not of His essence. He can have no better and best, as He is only best in essence.) has to overcome any lack of my understanding. At my weakest I must lean on His goodness. I must contemplate His love and experience His mercy.
But at my strongest can I contemplate His complexity? In my quest to love God more, can I come to understand Him more? If I love someone of whom I only know a very little about bit about them, can I really love them very much or do I love the image I have created from my lack of knowledge of them? As my wife learns over time of my foibles, doesn’t her love for me grow stronger as she loves me despite my foibles. The image she fell in love with, the one I projected early in our relationship, is not the full me. To love me more is to love all of me. Not only the image I project, but the entirety of me.
When someone meets another and they get to know one another and they say ‘I love you’ who do they love? They love that portion of you they have learned about. It is limited by the lack of knowledge of you. I am not saying they don’t love you. But it is limited. You grow in love as you grow in understanding of that person.
God love us. His knowledge of us is complete. He can love us completely. But our love of God is incomplete. Understanding is not the only component of loving God more. Loving because we are loved can deepen our relationships. Loving because we realize we are loved can deepen our love. But understanding the target of our love can also deepen our love. And realizing that God knows our foibles and still loves us can deepen our love for Him.
So is knowing that God loves us enough to love God enough? Or is knowing that God loves us despite our foibles enough to love God enough? That second statement is huge. I have huge foibles. God doesn’t ignore them in order to love me. He doesn’t just love the portions of me I want to project to Him. He loves me with my foibles. All of them. Now that is moving! You do not know who I was before I came to know Him. I kept my self hidden. I did not like me. I projected only an image of me. Back then God loved me. When I realized this, I began to really love God. Then as I began to see what God did for me I began to love Him more. And when I began seeing what God was doing for me, I began to love Him even more.
But for me it is not enough. I don’t want to love just an image I have created of God. I want to love the God who spoke of love, of caring for the less fortunate, the God who healed, the One who died for me. I also want to love the God to whom Peter said “where else can I go.” I also want to love the God who got angry and chased out the money changers from the temple. The God who spoke of a real hell and the wide gate to destruction. I want to love every bit of the God we know through Jesus Christ.
I also want to love the God we know through the Father and the Holy Spirit. The God of vengeance and destruction. The God who controls the wind and the storms. The God who allows bad things to happen. The God who I do not understand. To love God more I believe that I need to know God better.
Do you really want to know who God is?