It takes a long time for us to allow God to be who God really is. Our natural egocentricity wants to make God into who we want God to be... While there are some “pure of heart” people (see Matthew 5:8) who come to “see God” naturally and easily, most of us need lots of help.
If God is always Mystery, then God is always in some way the unfamiliar, beyond what we’re used to, beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we can explain or understand. In the fourth century, St. Augustine said, “If you comprehend it, it is not God.” [1] Would you respect a God you could comprehend? And yet, very often we want a God who reflects and even confirms our culture, our biases, our economic, political, and security systems.
...God created human beings in God’s own image, and we’ve returned the compliment, so to speak, by creating God in our image. In the end, we produced what was typically a small, clannish God. In America, God looks like Uncle Sam or Santa Claus, an exacting judge, or a win/lose business man—
...Normally we find it very difficult to let God be greater than our culture, our immediate needs, and our projections. The human ego wants to keep things firmly in its grasp; so, we’ve created a God who fits into our small systems and our understanding of God. Thus, we’ve produced a God who requires expensive churches and robes, a God who likes to go to war just as much as we do, and a domineering God because we like to dominate. We’ve almost completely forgotten and ignored what Jesus revealed about the nature of the God he knew....
Jeff comments... I love it! Yes we have made God into something that we can control. Some have made him into something that they can use to hurt others. God is not there for us to use to hurt others, and God is not there for us to try to control.
God is love, and that is what he asks us to do. Simple. Period.
It's a beautiful day in God's world be sure to see the good.
Send replies to jsbrink57@gmail.com
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I am leading some trips this year and next. If you are interested in reading about them, or joining in, the links are below.....
Wesley's Ireland with optional London Extension
October 8-17, 2018
http://www.eo.travelwithus.com/tours/wesley-in-ireland-2018-with-rev-jeff-brinkman#.WqHrI7puLIU
Holy Land Tour - includes my favorite spots
with optional Jerusalem extension
March 4-13, 2019
http://www.eo.travelwithus.com/tours/hl19030419g17768#.Wt84h7lRHcs
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