God's Personality

I've had an epiphany about God. In some churches God is depicted as a person who wants us to evolve or adapt into something we aren't in order to do his work on Earth. God becomes that Boss that we hide aspects of ourselves around because it could effect our employment or in this case salvation or a seat of honor in Heaven. God is seen by the world in this way as an overlord who demands service and a purging of our own desires. The truth is completely contrary. God because of this wrongful image has become unlikable. People have made God this ogre who wants to crush you because of your sins and even though he died and rose again, you still need to do penances to appease his wrath or avoid his disapproval. How did such a warped view of our Creator come into being?! God in direct contrast doesn't want you focused on your sins. Yep, I said it. God wants you to be exactly what he wove you to be in the womb. He wants us to chase after those wholesome dreams he placed in our D.N.A and that have awoken because of the inspiration we've seen. God is concerned with our journey, not the destination. The Most High already knows where our story ends, he's interested in the chapters from the beginning to the end. God makes us aware of our faults, folly, and falling short not to shame us but to refine us so that we can better do what we want to. Let me use an example. My nephew who is five years old has become very disrespectful. Yesterday I reprimanded him by putting him on a time out and my mother told him that he needed to cease being disrespectful because he is going to school in two weeks. The goal is not just to make my nephew a better person, but teaching him respect; the goal is to give him a better quality of life. If he learns respect before he goes to school, his experience will comprise of making new friends and learning from the teacher. If my nephew doesn't learn respect, he will be reprimanded by the teach and thus humiliated in front of his potential new friends and develop a bad first impression. God through alerting us to our sin is trying to keep us from the bad experience. He wants us to do what we want, go to school and make new friends and learn new exciting things, but he wants to spare us the shame and humbling that comes from practicing the sinful behavior.

Christ has paid the price our sin and now we are free. When God convicts us of our transgression or terrible behavior, he does so in gentleman-like way. God does not come with list of one hundred follies or mistakes. He takes the most pertinent and problematic issue and reveals it to us. God wants to purge that problem so that we can be more efficient in our dreams, relate better to our fellow human beings, and grow in His character. It isn't about a a score card or trying to self analyzing our sins to death. It is letting God, when he decides It's time to convict us and help us commit to working on that problem. Satan in contrast makes our lives about the problem, instead of resolving the problem to make our lives more abundant. Satan will take our weaknesses and tell us we can't follow our dreams. Satan says, "you can't teach others to exercise and lose weight, your overweight you hypocrite!" God in contrast says, "teach others to conquer their weight issues because it will help them, it will help reinforce in you what you should do, and you might learn something new." God takes sinners and combats sin. The devil would have us give up and stop chasing our dreams because we aren't spiritual enough, intellectual enough, physically fit enough, or whatever prerequisite he decides is necessary. Satan is about perfection, God is about using imperfection to create perfection.

I believe God is more interested in our journey than the destination. I will use the example of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug. What draws us to watch Bilbo Baggins and Thorin & Company is the journey. The destination is to destroy a dragon and liberate the homeland of the dwarves known as Erebor. But in order to get to that destination, the characters have to go through the journey. Bilbo at the beginning of An Unexpected Journey seems like the most unlikely candidate for the quest. Bilbo is small, he doesn't have wizard powers, and he doesn't have the prowess or power of the dwarves. Bilbo seems like a foolish choice, but his own uniqueness is what makes the entire journey and destination possible. It is Bilbo and his smarts that saves the Dwarves from Trolls, Elves, Spiders, and other perils. It is Bilbo finding the One Ring, that makes the confrontation with Smaug possible. If Bilbo hadn't found the Ring, he couldn't have learned of Smaug's weakness and thus the fire drake could never have been defeated. This brings to mind a paradox that God himself operates in. The One Ring of Power, which is Sauron's Spirit forged in metal, a source of sorcery and evil is the tool used by Eru (God) to destroy the evil of Smaug. It says in the Pslams, "That God uses evil to destroy the wicked." (Pslam 34:21). This seems impossible! How can God who is good wield evil to destroy evil?! This shows us how finite our minds our, that we really don't understand good and evil and only God can answer the paradox.

What we learn when Smaug is slain and Bilbo returns to the Shire is something extraordinary. When the journey is ended, and the destination has been met, there remains a sense of mourning or melancholy. During the journey Bilbo made dear friends with the dwarves and Gandalf. Thorin & Company are the only ones who can understand and relate to having been prisoners of Goblins, having been captured by Trolls, having crossed brooks and brambles, and having faced a dragon. Even Frodo Baggins and The Fellowship of the Ring cannot relate to Bilbo, because their experience was completely different. Only Thorin & Company can relate to that journey and reminisce about It's joys and terrors. I believe this is the same about God. He wants us to have a journey like Bilbo and along the way he refines our character and helps us learn something about ourselves and others. Thorin Oakenshield in An Unexpected Journey treats Bilbo like a bother and a useless Burgler. Thorin condescends and cuts down Mr. Baggins; but by the end of the first half of the journey Thorin realizes how important Bilbo is in their company. Thorin has the epihpany Mr. Baggins the Burger possess skills and gifts that have aided the entire company. God doesn't' want Bilbo to be Thorin or Thorin to be Bilbo; he makes everyone one of us with different abilities, affinities, and passions. He doesn't want us before His Altar to change into Gandalf or try to be Radagast if we are Filli and Kili. No, The Lord wants us to gone on this journey of life being exactly who were are and letting him in the process improve us via the circumstances, the company, and Christ himself. The improvements don't make us more holy, more worthy or better; they make us more able to live that abundant life so that we escape more humiliations, more embarrassments, and more pain. God wants to spare us the time spent on reaping bad consequences so that we can enjoy the fruit and feast of our dreams!

God is likable! Yes the devil wants to make us not believe it, but God is likable! Nay he is lovable! He doesn't want to take your dreams away or make you serve his purposes without passion or an innate desire. He has given you good desires, ambitions, and dreams. He isn't "trying to rob you, he is trying to help you." (Gandalf, Ian Mckellen, LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring). God wants to see you excited about your wholesome passions. He is delighted when you publish your book, get married to your love, get that position at your job, learn something exciting at school, have a fun time at the movies, playing video games, and etc. He is only going to disrupt those things if he sees that the book isn't ready to publish and it needs editing, or the market isn't ready for it: (think Moby Dick,) or that it will have a negative impact until It's evolved into a later edition. He will perhaps hinder a relationship for marriage because that person really isn't right for you or maybe the timing isn't right. God will interrupt you climbing the latter at your work because he sees a better job available or perhaps he knows that the responsibilities are too much for your makeup at this point in life and wants to spare you the stress. God might diminish your excitement about learning something new at school if you find out It's false or that it contradicts His character. God may convict you not to go see a film not to steal your fun, but because he knows it will keep you up with nightmares or cause you other grievances. God is our heart surgeon and he wants what is best for us. He isn't this mean ogre or slave driver trying to take away our fun. On the contrary God created fun! Everything that brings pleasure: food, rest, whine, sex, chocolate, and etc was created by Him! He made the fruit of the vine to give us joy, but not to be our escape from responsibilities. He made rest for the weary after work, but not to lay in bed and waste your potential. He made chocolate to taste good, but not to eaten until your overweight. God made sex to be for a married man and woman to connect and enjoy each other, not to be used for financial gain and to defile others.

You may want to call me a prude and claim that your fun comes from breaking God's laws. Well then don't cry when you reap the consequences that God was trying to spare you from. If you decide to drink and become a drunk don't get mad at God when your liver gives out and you die prematurely. If you decide to overeat and use food as a coping mechanism than for fuel and occasional pleasure don't get mad that you are sluggish or your arteries are clogged. If you decide to experiment with sex and have multiple partners or have an affair don't' complain to God that you have STDs or that your family and your reputation has been destroyed. God wants to give us all the joy, bliss, and ecstasy without the negative consequences and fall out. To do this God gave us guidelines and He via His Holy Spirit shapes our character through the journey. God's personality is actually not that clergyman with squinted eyes and a mean demeanor. God's personality is one like that of a catalyst. He wants to make us feel good about our dreams and he wants to help us. He doesn't want you to throw your good passions on his altar and become a person that you are not. God wants us to live abundantly. He has created us for a journey that does have a destination, but we need to start focusing on the journey and not the destination. Yes we should be aware of Heaven and Hell, but remember we are on Earth. Yes we should know Smaug and The Lonely Mountain is our destination, but first deal with Azog, the Goblin King, and Spiders first. We need to not become so consumed with the end, God will direct us there and it is in his hands. Instead we should like Bilbo go on the adventure with Adonai (Lord, God) and do our part as one of Christ's Company. Use our skills, abilities, and passions to help in the journey. Don't compare yourself to the other members, instead be yourself! God made you just who he intended and any evil in your character he will address at the proper time for you to purge. Bilbo wasn't ready to let go of the One Ring at Smaug Lair, but at the Shire when it was time for the evil to be destroyed, he had to let it go to Frodo. Likewise, sometimes we aren't ready to face our folly or let God do heart surgery. The Lord is aware of this. I'm not advocating ignoring vices, but sensitivity to timing is important. That is why Paul says, "give him over to the devil for the crucifixion of his flesh (sinful nature)." (1 Corinthians 5:4-6). Some people need to "eat with the pigs," before they are ready to expel the evil behavior they exhibit. Only God knows if they need to only touch the mud with their shoe to be convicted or to wallow in that mud eating slop with the swine. Each person is different and God being gentleman is patient and will send the Spirit of Conviction when the person is most receptive.

I hope that we can get a correct perspective of The One True God. That he is just, but also wants us to have fun. That there are seasons when he has us when life is hard fighting Orcs and slaying dragons, and other times spent in the splendor of the Shire and Rivendell. God loves us. His love is demonstrated through His death on the Cross. He wants us not to be slaves to sin. Even now, redeemed we can become slaves to sin; spending all of our attention on our mistakes and vices. God wants us to instead see ourselves as he sees us; as beautiful creations who have limitless potential and that our wonderful for just existing. God does want us to deal with bad character in ourselves, but he never puts a load too heavy on us (Matt 11:28-30). He won't give you a list of a hundred sins or vices; he takes each one at a time and shows us at the right time so that we can grow and became better able to love, to trust, and to be everything God created us to be!