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Misunderstanding God

August 28, 2010

“Labels are devices for saving talkative persons the trouble of thinking.” — John Morley

Being understood is hard work, I find. Conversations crash and burn when the wrong word takes dialogue sideways; I slip up in something I say, or I have a “look” that is misinterpreted, and it is hard to get the whole thing back. Sometimes it is impossible; some people are excellent at remembering everything I said, and there is no undoing.

Writing; you’d think that would help. Sometimes it does, if I am patient in the writing process and truthful and unselfish. But there too; so much room for error. How a sentence sounds in my head is not how someone else might read it and how someone might read it is also dependent on the mood they are in. Writing comes without a look in my eyes, without gesture or body-language; so the person is left with the print and it can seem cold, no matter how many warm words I try to put on the page.

It frustrates me when I am misunderstood. I know who I am in my heart; I know what my intentions are, but sometimes things go haywire and I wonder, “How did we get here?” Or, “How do you see me like that? I’m not that way at all.”

We all add to people or take away from them based on very little information and often on misinformation; we see a little, we hear a little, we understand a little and we profile. We do the same to God.

I see this in my own life, how I have theories about who God is and how He thinks and operates: I see a little, hear a little, understand a little and I create Him as I see Him. I often read the Bible, looking for what I want to see about God; hiding from what I don’t. And yet Proverbs 30:5–6 says

“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.”

I have been proven a liar about people; some I thought too much of, some I thought too little. I have misunderstood God in a similar way. I have made God big for some things and inadequate for others (I prove this every day by how I live and by what I worry about). I have read some of His words and like those, but the words I don’t like I try to make sense of, but with my sensibilities. I can’t imagine a God I cannot imagine so I shrink Him down so He can be written about neatly in a pamphlet, or handed out to people like a sedative.

Some people turn their back on God when they misunderstand Him. I am thinking of Oprah and how one word derailed her. She was sitting in church and the pastor, quoting Scripture, said, “We serve a jealous God.” She could not, nor cannot, wrap her head around that word “jealous” and her whole spiritual journey took a turn over that word. How can God’s Word be so flawless, when that word seems so flawed?

God’s Word creates a tension in us. C.S. Lewis grappled with how to understand God in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (where Aslan the lion represents God):

“‘Is – is he a man?’ asked Lucy.

‘Aslan a man!’ said Mr. Beaver sternly. ‘Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion.’

‘Ooh,’ said Susan, ‘I thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.’

‘That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,’ said Mrs. Beaver; ‘if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.’

‘Then he isn’t safe?’ said Lucy.

‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver; ‘don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king I tell you’.”

I think this may be the finest description of God by a writer outside of the Bible: unsafe, but good. Can’t you see, though, how this might leave a lot of room for misunderstanding? As I grapple with God’s flawless words I try to understand Him as my shield and refuge, but often my experience makes me feel MORE exposed, not less. I prefer life to have a sense of balance and order and predictability, yet the journey He takes me on feels wild instead. Is this good?

Misunderstandings about God, His words and actions, can cause a range of reactions from outright rejection to muddling about in confusion. It isn’t like I have come to a place where I am comfortable with God. I am mostly uncomfortable, to be honest. Every day I wrestle in some way, trying to understand God; trying to understand His “flawless” words and His goodness in the middle of what doesn’t always feel good.

Recently I heard Donald Miller describe the tension of trying to follow this God who still is so mysterious, whose actions are still so hard to understand, and it connected with me. Following God, he said, is a “difficult challenge that is going to create a beautiful story.”

It is in the middle of this tension I seek to understand God, and it is this story that my life is trying to write.

– Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

Afterword: Back to Oprah, I would love to ask her, did you really sit with that word a while before you created a new God that suited you better? Because “jealous” takes on a whole new meaning when the underlying characteristic of the jealous one is “goodness” not “selfishness.” One of the most untamed passages about the most committed kind of love includes the word jealous (Song of Songs 8:6–7):

Place me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

for love is as strong as death,

its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like blazing fire,

like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot wash it away.

If one were to give

all the wealth of his house for love,

it would be utterly scorned.

I wonder how God feels to be misunderstood about His jealousy? His love for us is zealous, passionate and fiercely pure; protective and loyal and unconditional. His love goes to the grave and then beyond it. There is no corner left in us that His love does not fill.

Would we prefer something less? Something a little shakier? Would we like just a little of that and not to be engulfed by it? God is not some petty, insecure man who can’t let his lover have a life. God’s jealousy is quite the opposite; His jealousy thunders, “don’t you dare!” to any evil thing that wants to steal life when God promises to give us life and give it to us abundantly (John 10:10). His jealousy cannot fathom anyone separating the two of us. His love is about giving to, not taking away.

Please God, love and guard me jealously!

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Consider: The Word of the Lord

July 29, 2010

Part 4 of “Consider This”

“You of this generation, consider
the word of the LORD…”
(Jeremiah 2:31 NIV)

My first Bible had a bright red cover; it was thick and heavy, both in weight and content. I didn’t really read it; I just looked at it. I liked the small letters and the tidy columns; I liked the way it sounded when I turned the onionskin pages. There was a feel about it, like it was important, but I didn’t know what to do with it.

This is how it was for many years. Even when I was old enough to understand what the words meant; even when I could find my way around a Bible, I didn’t love it. I loved God, and I lugged around His book, but I could put it down.

Something changed; the word I would put to it is “want.” I suddenly wanted something from that book. I began to look at my Bible as something to be unlocked. I took out some paper; just plain lined paper. I read a verse and decided to talk about it and ask questions of it and write down my prayer related to it. I didn’t exactly address it to anyone but I could see that a conversation had begun between God’s Spirit and mine, and this began to change my mind about the Bible, and it began to change me.

Many years have passed now, and that conversation continues. I can’t explain it but there is something about the pen hitting the page (or my fingers hitting the keyboard) that opens up something in me and allows God to speak to me through His Word, the Bible, which I have come to love.

I never know what I am going to get when I read a verse or a page of verses. Sometimes I think, “There is nothing here for me today,” and something in me responds, “don’t give up so easily.” So I press in and I ask and I think and I pray; I am curious enough (desperate some days) to see how God will show up in places I can’t see Him and then suddenly, there He is; there is the lesson; there is what He wants me to hear.

A lot of people hate writing and the good thing about this whole “exercise” is that it isn’t about the writing, the sentence structure, the perfect paragraph with the beginning, middle and end. It is about what is happening, what is going in to your heart and what is coming out of your thoughts. It is about seeing the thing you didn’t see before, and that only happens when we slow down and write down what we are thinking about.

The precedent for this is all over the Bible:

  • As God was passing instructions down to Moses He said, “write these words down.” (Exodus 34:27, 43:11)
  • God told Habakkuk to write down the revelation he was receiving (Habakkuk 2:2)
  • God told John, when He was describing everything that was to come, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:5)

Of course, the biggest example is the Bible itself. It is the written down interaction between man and God in 66 books that we wouldn’t have if God had not nudged people to write it down.

I have a collection of pages now, my pen hitting the paper, the zig-zagging plot of my life companioned by God’s words. The word of the Lord has met me, guided me, saved me, stopped me, affirmed me, chastened me, warned me, and envisioned me “for the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

I want to paint a realistic picture for those who might read these words.

  • I do not rise at 4 and find an aesthetically pleasing corner to meditate and contemplate life and the meaning of it (although this sounds nice).
  • I almost always sit down in the morning at some point (because the rest of the day is crazy) and sometimes I don’t. I try to be disciplined about it, but I am not always.
  • I usually follow a reading guide (because I like to be forced to look at books/verses I might not naturally choose to read and I love that God knows that I am going to be reading it and has already planned something for me).
  • I ramble.
  • I have the messiest handwriting on the planet.
  • I don’t always finish my sentences.
  • On some pages in my journal (looking back) I sound like a real idiot. So what. That’s the whole point of the exercise, to see this and to let God lead me to a better way.

Sometimes my times with God’s word is brief and to the point. Sometimes they are long and rambling. Sometimes what I end up with is really beautiful. Often what I end up with makes me realize how much work God has on His hands.

God calls this generation to consider the word of the Lord mostly because the word of the Lord considers us and shows us what we cannot see about ourselves. The word of the Lord is also the way we understand the will of the Lord. God’s word points to what matters to God in every situation and gives us half a chance of actually becoming a little bit of what Jesus desired when He prayed, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6).

We so often say, “what does God want?!?!” I picture God saying, “I already told you!”

Consider the word of the Lord.

—Teresa Klassen (http://www.onebrownleaf.wordpress.com)

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