Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #65 |
||
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
JESUS calls US to be |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
||
What's GOD (Really) Like?
Was Dad Really TEN Feet Tall?
Elmer Prout Was A Child OnceIn ENSIGN for July 1997 [2710 Day Rd, Huntsville Alabama 35801, edited by R. L. Kilpatrick] is another interesting article by Elmer Prout [P O Box 361, Graton CA 95444-0361]. This time he tells about when he thought his dad was as big as God...
He refers us to 1 Corinthians 13:11 where Paul testifies that when he was a child, he was childish. Elmer says he had ideas at five that later proved to be unfounded. Did you? See what he says --
As I read 1 Corinthians 13:11 the other day, a picture of my father flashed before my eyes. I remembered how I saw him when I was five years old. At that point, he was the greatest man I knew -- His hands were huge, strong as could be. Hardened from farm work, they were gentle as he tucked me into bed. I knew my dad could whip anyone anywhere. He knew everything there was to know. He could always answer my every question. My dad could do anything at all that was worth doing!
And every word my dad said was true. Everything HE did was right. The way he ate, dressed, drove, worked was the right way -- THE way it should be done.
Then one day I caught the measles. Hey, Dad did too! And he was in bed for weeks, much longer than I was. His recovery took MONTHS. My dad with a kid's disease. I couldn't imagine such a thing! How could this have happened to him? Super-dad? Why, he wasn't even immune from measles.
My dreams crashed to earth. Right before my eyes, my dad shrank. Now I knew he could NOT do everything. Now I knew he did NOT know everything. He could NOT whip the whole world. He wasn't really the greatest guy on earth. I was devastated.
What was happening in my life? Who was changing? What was shrinking? Change DID occur and something DID shrink. But it wasn't my dad who changed -- it was my perception OF my dad. I thought of my dad as being more than he in fact was. I considered him to be greater and wiser and stronger than he knew he was and that he claimed to be.
Dad was an average man that I childishly had made into an idol.
Now the moment had come when I learned I had been wrong. Now that my idol was shattered, did I still have a father? Was this man who suffered from the measles really MY dad? Could he be a father to me? Would I allow him to do that?
I could not have put these thoughts into words. But the fact is that my dad's reality was, and always had been, different from my fantasies. My acceptance of that reality was an inescapable part of my growing up. And dad was still my dad!
It's impossible for me to tell you when it was, but at some point in my youth I began to form ideas about God. I read the Bible. I went to Sunday School and church meetings. I heard sermons at gospel meetings. I attended a Christian day school. Those varied experiences fed my mind and heart with thoughts about God.
I learned that special words should be used to refer to God. I made lists: Creator, Lord, Ruler, Lawgiver, Judge, Holy, Almighty, Eternal ... These were all good, strong words about God. In a special way the Old Testament stories of God's power and strictness caught my attention. I decided that God was primarily the divine Lawgiver -- an old law for Moses and David -- a new law for us Christians.
As the years passed I pondered what I was hearing. I put it all together in what became my personal system of thought. I was quite satisfied with my picture of God and his will for men. My thoughts about God made God the right size to fit into my mind. From right to left, my brain was exactly the size to contain God as I imagined him.
I was convinced that my understanding was the correct description of the deity. I was certain that my evaluation of people was identical to God's view of them. I was sure that God drew the same lines that I drew. I did not doubt that I knew who was in with God and who was out. I did not hesitate to think and say, "Well, you can think whatever you wish, but I know that God is pleased with this, this, this, and ... "
It was a comfortable, heady, smug time for me. God was at home in my head. I had looked for God. I had FOUND God. I had organized the facts about God. In my brain, and in the system I had prepared for him, God was settled (just as my five-year-old view of my dad had been firm and fixed).
That was when the "measles" struck again! This time they did not strike my dad. They struck me. They hit that well-organized thought system on which I set such store. And when it was all over, I realized that God cannot be contained in any human mind -- especially not in mine.
It happened like this. I was reading Mark 9:38-41 ... "Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." "Do NOT stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against us is for us."
That gave me a jolt. What John was told by Jesus did NOT fit into my picture of God. I was shaken. But I soon settled back into my normal smugness. Settled back, that is, until I read a statement or two from Job, "And these are but the outer fringes of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?" (Job 26:14 NIV).
Those words carried an impact I could not ignore. Was I claiming to have heard more clearly than Job heard? Had I mistaken a faint whisper for a full voice?
Still, I was tempted to turn away from Job's story. Tempted to turn deeper into my self-constructed certainties. But the text lured me on. I heard God's challenge to Job -- "I will question you, and you shall answer me" (Job 40:7). Job's reply shook me to the depths of my soul: "I am unworthy -- how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer -- twice, but I will say no more . . . Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know" (Job 40:4,5; 42:5,6).
God did not and would not fit into Job's mold. God refused to be a mental idol as surely as he refused to be an image of wood, stone, or metal.
With the words of those passages ringing in my ears, I saw all of my formulas and systems pushed to the side. Every line in my catalog of quick and sure answers was deleted. My illusions of certainty were shattered. It was time for encouragement. I found it in Paul's letter to the Ephesian believers: I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better ... may have power ... to know this love that surpasses knowledge ... to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Ephesians 1:17,18; 3:14-21 NIV).
Paul's words made me think again of childhood. My childish picture of my father had been too large. Dad never was as big as I had imagined him to be. But regardless of my fantasies, that man WAS my father. In his own right, he was a person. His nature and character were not determined by MY understanding (my misunderstanding). Whether I pictured him correctly or not, he was my parent.
When the fog of my childish illusions cleared, I began to see that my father was a person who invited me into deeper personal relationship with him. I came to realize that relationship is the key to life between a father and a child. I was being led beyond imagination into reality. I was called to be a son to a father who simply wanted to be trusted as who he was rather than as an idol of my design.
If my picture of my dad was too large, my picture of God was too small. God never was the size, texture, nature or temperament that I had imagined him to be. God is, always has been, and always will be, larger than I had thought. In fact, God is larger than I am ABLE to think (Ephesians 3:19,20).
The question that faces me now is, "Will I accept the God who is larger than MY specifications for him?" Will I trust and obey the God who will not allow himself to be pressed into a mold?
We are challenged to go beyond our collected bits of information about God. We are called to think beyond our lists of facts that WE know. We are urged to NOT be bound by the lines of human logic and formulations of systems. We are invited to know GOD by knowing Jesus Christ (as revealed in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and in the deeds of those who were chosen to deliver "all truth" to the world).
See John 1:14,18; 14:9; and 17:3. In Jesus Christ, and because of the Christ, we find that God is more personal than we had dreamed he could be. We learn to mistrust our human understandings. But as we experience that mistrust of HUMAN designs, we are enabled to turn to God with a growing trust in who God really is. Now we cling to God himself rather than to theories ABOUT him.
Brief Bible Study #65 from Ray Downen. To go back to Viewpoint's first page, click < here. Or here to go on to Viewpoint Study 66.For Ray's concluding remarks, click HERE.
