What do you think God is like? How does he feel? What does he think about? What does he like? What does he hate? Where is he? How did he get there? All of us have asked these questions at some point or another. Some of us have tried our darndest to come up with sensible answers. To the degree that we are locked into an answer to any or all of these questions is the degree to which we have developed a God-concept. A God-concept is a firm mental image of what you consider God to be like. God-concepts are not all bad. They almost always come with a measure of truth. Trouble gets to brewin' though when we lose sight of God for the sake of our ideas about him.
Up until last summer, I had a deeply rooted God-concept of my own. Over the years, and mostly unknowingly, I had built a statue of the Almighty within the recesses of my mind. I must say, he looked pretty doggone good. I kept him well-maintained, and chased the pigeons away when they got too close. By way of my God-concept, I found spiritual assurance. I pretty well understood God, and was rarely surprised. If ever a doubt crossed my mind, all I had to do was behold my omnipotent statue in all of its' concrete glory. Then the bottom fell out.
Disappointment with ministry. A realization of my own inadequacy. Those and a hand full of other things sent me headlong into a crisis of faith. What had always worked would work no longer. I could no longer answer the questions with confidence. I could no longer convince myself that I understood. The statue was wobbling, and soon it would come crashing down and shatter into a million pieces. I frantically tried to piece God back together, but the glue wouldn't hold. God, as I knew him, was dead. The silence was deafening.
Out of the ashes of my existential despair came a revelation. Now that I lacked a concept of how God was, I was free to experience him as he actually is. I found God by losing him. Through the painful, and sometimes unwilling relinquishment of my God-concept, I had a skin-on-skin encounter with the transcendent. Unbeknownst to me, God had been holding me the entire time.
2 comments:
YES! I don't mean that in an unloving, calloused way. Quite the opposite. I rejoice over your crisis because I know, from personal experience, what it can produce. I'm sure you'll tell more in Part 2, but out of the ashes left over from the fire our doubts lit, comes a purified and beautiful understanding of God.
There's a saying that goes something like, "I don't trust anyone who doesn't walk with a limp." I tend to agree. The people that I know have experienced deep pain and disappointment and have lived to tell the tale are the people I will listen to more than those who seem to have gone through life relatively unscathed.
I'm excited to read part 2
yes, yes, and yes. and yes to what matt rampey said, which was also, by the way, a resounding 'YES!' (especially the part about the limp).
nevermind, josh. i don't think i could handle it if you wrote more frequently. every couple of weeks is about as much as i can take.
you are incredible; your faith-walk humbling and your prose is seriously amazing, josh.
love you guys.
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