All of us have a perspective on God

Sceptics often say that the reason for their atheism is that they could never believe in a God who…(fill in the blanks). They think that any God would be a tyrant with little concern or capacity to care about people. So why would anyone want to follow such a being?

Actually, it isn’t just atheists who have distorted views of God. Most Christians do too. Perhaps not in theoretical beliefs, but certainly in practice. Thoughts go through our heads such as, “Maybe God cares about others – but not me” or “God is miles away and not willing/able to help me.” I’m sure you could add plenty more to this list.

So, what to do?

Perhaps we need to start with the basics. Many of us carry around a contractual view of God: I need to measure up to his standard – if not, I’m in trouble. If I don’t do certain things (pray, go to church, be a nice person) he will be upset or angry with me, and bad things will happen. It’s contractual.

But if our view is relational, things change. Think of loving parents. Sometimes they might get upset with their children. There will be consequences for mischievous behaviour. But it will always be couched in the context of love and affection. The child knows that whatever (s)he does, the parent will be on their side and the child’s primary and consistent experience is one of care, concern and joyful interaction. He knows he is loved – he’s had a lifetime of it.

Loved for life

So ask the child (and later, as an adult) what he thinks of his parents. What comes into his mind, and what will he say? It’s very likely that he always felt loved, and that the feeling was mutual. That’s the view Jesus had of his Father, and it’s the view we can have too.

This begs a lot of questions. For example, supposing we didn’t have a positive experience of our parents growing up? That will certainly have an impact, but we’ll leave that for another post.

In the meantime, I’d like to encourage you to think about your Father as a loving parent towards you. What outcome will that have over the next weeks and years?