God...
...is...
...wait for it...
...a person.
Boom.
Mind blown, right?
Its way more profound than it sounds though. In fact, it sounds at first like something so simple I shouldn't have to say it at all. But that's what makes it so life-changing. I actually need to say it.
See, I like to talk about God. He has been a cosmic problem I have been trying to wrap my mind around since I was a little kid and I thought I could go over my parents' heads and ask him for a cookie (he said "no", just like they did). I've spent countless hours dissecting, proving and disproving, explaining, and reading about who God is and why he's done the things he's done. For instance:
The list goes on. And a simple statement like "God is a person" certainly doesn't answer them outright. But remembering that God is a person will most certainly shape the answer.
- How can God be both Just and Loving?
- How can I harness the power of prayer?
- Why does he do such mean things?
For whatever reason, it is easy for us humans to relegate others to the world of material objects. Just listen to people having even a civil conversation about the president and you'll quickly discover that they know virtually nothing about him on personal level. Persons are much more simple and much more complicated than we ever give them credit for. Who of us can really explain our own motivations for a decision much less someone else's? And yet at the same time when we actually take the time to get to know them, we find there are things in their past that make those decisions at least partway explainable.
When we took our foster parent classes, we learned that being a foster parent can be really hard because most foster kids are, well, damaged. They tend to be rebellious, unloving, emotionally distant and we should be prepared for some really weird and upsetting behaviors. We all cowered in our seats, wondering why they were telling us this. Then they told us why. Because nearly every foster kid is in the system because a lot of bad stuff has happened in their lives. They come from broken, often abusive homes. They've been hurt badly and the reason they act the way they do is because that's the only way they know how to deal with all the crap. Suddenly our perceptions of them turned from something to be feared to something to be loved because we were reminded that they are not just "youths", but they were people. Like us.
I'm not sure comparing God to a broken child is quite the metaphor I want to use all the time, but I think God is the same way. I think there is a reason he has always explained himself to us using personal and relational metaphors. God is the king and we are his subjects. God is the shepherd and we are his sheep. God is the father and we are his children. God is the groom and we are his bride.
So, you could say that God is like the space shuttle and we like an ant, crawling over the heat shield tiles without a clue as to the power beneath us. But God is much more like a firefighter, rushing into a burning building to save the puppy of a small child, who is us. It isn't entirely wrong to say that God is a power that can be harnessed through earnest prayer and a healthy dosage of faith. But it is so much more accurate to say that God is our father who wants us to grow up and have an inner strength like his own one day.
When God becomes a person in our minds, the questions either get easier to answer or don't even apply anymore.
- Can a loving person even be loving without being just?
- Maybe we should talk about prayer the same way we talk about good conversation. First rule? Find out about the other person.
- My two year old boy probably wonders why his dad is so mean sometimes. But I know that if I'm not "mean" now, then the police will be mean later on if he keeps throwing pointy objects at people. Maybe our father in heaven acts the same way.
God has always hated idols because they reduce him to a mere thing. They oversimplify, suggesting that he is completely knowable and understood. Understood things are easily manipulated. We've always liked idols for the same reasons.
But God is not completely knowable and understood, any more than any of us are (at least by each other). God is a person, and being in his image, so are we. To truly understand him, we must look past our logic rules, doctrine statements, and misguided metaphors. We must get to know him personally. We must try to understand the universe from his point of view. We must get to know his history, his motivations for why he acts, his likes and dislikes. And above all, we must allow him to be mysterious, just as we allow each other to be that way.
If our own relationships are any sign of how great a challenge it is to truly know another person, then we know we can easily spend eternity plumbing the depths of the personality on which all others are based on. And if that's the case, then for all intents and purposes, I've only just shaken his hand and learned his name. This is a conversation that is going to make for a very long, pleasant evening.