God is Not a Gas Bubble

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And all that is within me, bless His holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget none of His benefits;

Who pardons all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases;

Who redeems your life from the pit,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;

Who satisfies your years with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

The Lord performs righteous deeds

And judgments for all who are oppressed.

He made known His ways to Moses,

His acts to the sons of Israel.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,

Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

He will not always strive with us,

Nor will He keep His anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Just as a father has compassion on his children,

So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

For He Himself knows our frame;

He is mindful that we are but dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,

And its place acknowledges it no longer.

But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children,

To those who keep His covenant

And remember His precepts to do them.

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,

And His sovereignty rules over all.

Bless the Lord, you His angels,

Mighty in strength, who perform His word,

Obeying the voice of His word!

Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,

You who serve Him, doing His will.

Bless the Lord, all you works of His,

In all places of His dominion;

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

David, Psalm 103

I think a lot of us have it all wrong. I think when we hear the word “God,” we immediately get this picture of a hazy, abstract sort of cloud-being-thing which divvies out punishment and reward according to the likes of those hard-nosed celebrity judges on TV. We tend to not put a face on God. You know, keep the guy, or “thing,” distant, and don’t let “it” get to close to you because if you do, you might catch the religious bug and end up stuffing cartoon caricatures about Heaven and Hell into people’s hands on the corner of Jackson and State or maybe drinking Kool-Aid laced with arsenic. Yeah, we try to keep the God-thing distant. Or at best we’re not quite sure how to relate.

But if you read God’s autobiography, the Bible, you come away with a completely different portrait of the divine. You come face to face with Yahweh, not an inanimate object, not an abstract set of ideas or principles, but a person with a name who relates with individuals by name through friendship (Exodus 33:17), who grieves and feels emotional pain due to rejection (Genesis 6:5-8), who exhibits hatred toward injustices (Proverbs 6:16-19), who embraces compassion, graciousness, and love (Psalm 103:8-13), and who fully desires to connect with individual men and women in relationship accompanied by mutual understanding (Isaiah 43:10-11). In fact, “salvation”—a word which gets tossed around in religious circles about as much as “fare hike,” in Chicago public transportation realms—salvation is defined by Jesus Himself as a relationship with this personal God (John 17:1-5).

God is not an idea. God is not an object. God is not a thought. God, Yahweh, is a person.

If you’ve missed this somewhere along the way, please understand that people can be grossly misrepresented. Yahweh is a person. And He’s not escaped that detriment to personhood.

So if you think you may not have a grasp on the God-thing, do yourself a favor, and discard the preconceived notions, and acquaint yourself with God, the person. For starters, as in any relationship, contact has to be made between two people, and God has already initiated contact. In fact, he offers a relationship proposal, much the same as a man makes a marriage proposal to a woman. We were born dead to God and any relationship to Him as a result of our own self-addiction (you know, the egocentric realm you rule in your heart as king of the universe). But the beautiful conspiracy of history was initiated when God’s Son, Jesus, sacrificed His life for the correction of the human condition and then conquered death by rising back to life. As a result, the divine proposal now stands.

God wants to marry you.

He wants to relate. And once you accept His relationship proposal, that is, substituting the death of Jesus in place of your very tangible guilt and moral failure, you become family for life. Comment on this post with any questions you may have about accepting God’s proposal; I’d love to discuss it with you in more detail.

If you’ve already accepted God’s proposal, then talk to Him as if He were your best friend. We typically call that prayer. Share your concerns with Him. Confess the junk of your life to Him and ask for His forgiveness. Tell Him what you appreciate about Him. Understand that God knows all about you, better than anyone else, and He’s really tired of you putting on a mask any time you spend time with Him. Open up His autobiography, the Bible, and find out what He cares about, how He demonstrates His love, what He gets ticked about, and what brings Him the greatest thrills. Yahweh really wants to be on speaking terms with you. So start relating.

“God is better than my most ideal thought of the most delightful thing or person.” –Bill Thrasher