Images of God

I treasure the pictures that my children drew of me when they were quite small.

Their kindergarten efforts at making a Fathers’ Day card were often accompanied by a hand-drawn image that they believed represented me, their Dad. Their very first attempts usually featured eyes and a mouth which was smiling, inside a circle on top of two long sticks. As the years passed I developed a body, which was usually adorned in brown and gold stripes representing the football team I barrack for. I in time also grew hair – at first just a few long single strands, in later years a messy mop, then also a big nose and big ears, which is pretty close to the mark!

Now that my older children are teenagers, their attempts to draw me now would include the correct eye colour, silver-flecked hair, and a body somewhat in proportion to the real life model, whilst still including the big ears.

As God’s children, we too can sometimes create an image of God that is incomplete or inaccurate. And that is the image we hold tightly to. The God who is always angry, or always watching to catch us out, or God who is distant and uninterested, or the God that controls every minute details of every human’s life. The God who loves us but never disciplines, or the God that disciplines because He loves us. The God who is always testing us, or the God that always lifts every single burden.

I read recently of a man describing how his view of Jesus changed throughout his life. It began seeing Jesus as a sheep-carrying, tender-hearted, friendly softie. It developed and changed into hero, and at other times things like guru, teacher, miracle-worker, rebel, and Saviour.

The Bible describes God in various ways, highlighting different characteristics, and these can be seen in the life and person of Jesus. And they are broad and detailed – not stick-figure like. With the most important being the capacity to love.

As my children matured, they were better able to represent their picture of me.

As God’s children, we mature through various spiritual disciplines and activities such as our reading of God’s Word, prayer, service etc. And hopefully as we mature, we are able to form and represent an image of God that is closer and closer to the real thing.

May we each learn to hold our mental images of God a little more loosely.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Obedience Over Instinct

We have two recent additions to our family. They arrived a few weeks apart, and these little ones are cute and adorable. They can’t talk, but we feel like they can communicate through the little noises they make. They are nursed and cuddled and very well looked after.

We are now the owners of two guinea pigs.

But it has caused a major upheaval in our household. Not with the humans, but with our dog.

Our dog has a bit of this, bit of that, but is primarily an English Springer Spaniel with a fair bit of whippet. Can’t you just picture these breeds of dogs in their natural state? Little furry creatures that scurry along the ground and through long grass are precisely what they were born to chase.

So our dog is beside himself. He is just super keen to get these creatures into his mouth. So he will attack the hutch incessantly. Scratching, yelping, lunging.

My kids were shocked when I meted out some discipline. A few smacks on the rump to let him know that I did not want him annoying the life out of our little guinea pigs – literally.

“Don’t do that, Dad. Poor dog. He can’t help it”

My response, “He needs to learn obedience over instinct.”

As soon as I said it, I thought of a spiritual parallel.

The Bible says that we have all been born with instincts, and that our natural instincts are to tend towards behaving in ways that are displeasing to God. Our instincts pull us towards greed, selfishness, disregard for others, prejudice and a whole range of things that we do that are in conflict with God’s designs for the world.

God gave the ancient Israelites some commandments, ten in all, but Jesus distilled them down to two – love God and love others. Yet this loving others bit goes against our instincts. See it’s not just loving people that we like and get along with, but we’re called to show love to all people, like them or not, whether they’ve hurt us or had conflict with us or wronged us. And that’s hard.

And I feel like God says, “It’s hard – but you need to learn obedience over instinct”. And through that obedience we demonstrate our love of God. Because when we disobey, and go according to our human instincts, and don’t show love to others, we separate ourselves from God.

Obedience over instinct.

Just as well for me that God offers forgiveness too.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington