What is God like? You hear that question all the time. Depending on who you ask you will get a different answer to that question.
Some describe Him as a kind of benevolent grandfather. Some refer to Him as the man up stairs. Others call him the absentee watchmaker who wound up the world, set it into motion and then left. Most of the people today say that God is Love. In itself that is a correct statement God is indeed Love but to say that that is all he is is to miss out on who God is.
There is an Old story of the blind men who were asked to describe the essence of an Elephant by feeling one. Each of the blind men touched a different part of the Elephant. One said the the Elephant was like a tree, another said he was like a snake, another like a hose, etc…
None of the men could describe the essence of the Elephant because each had a limited view of what an Elephant was. We humans have the same problem when we are describing what the essence of God is. We have two distinct problems, the first is akin to the problem that the blind men have and that is that we know God only from our limited point of view. We only know God by our experience of Him. We say that God is this or that but it is really only part of what God is. He is so much more than we can ever grasp with our finite minds.
We have such a limited experience with God. We humans have to put things in terms of what we know, so God can be like the father who ignores us, or like the friend who helps us in our time of need, or He can be the intimate love of our lives. For each person we can see a different aspect of who God is but we still miss the big picture.
On the other hand, we can willfully disregard who God is. Sometimes we really don’t want to know who God really is because to know him is to be responsible for the things that he has commanded us. The atheist denies the very existence of God for that very reason. God says “The fool says in his heart that there is no God.” If they deny Him they do not have to deal with Him.
For others it is easier to just say that God is Love. That way they can say that a Loving God would never do XY or Z. They overlook that God is a Just God and that he has a standard for his people. If they ignore who God really is they think that they don’t have to obey his commandments.
If they say that God is Love they can live like, well like hell and don’t have to worry that there are consequences for their actions. I’m a pretty good person, I don’t kick the dog, I’m good to the wife, I give to charities, well sometimes, God would never do something like send me to hell. They want to ignore what they perceive as the hard and messy parts of having a relationship with God. They think that it is just too much work.
Jesus promised that if we take on His yolk that it is light and that he would give us rest. He also promised that” You will find me if you seek me with all your heart. How better to get to know someone than if you just seek them out and have a relationship with them. Better than flying blind.
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