Creative License

Recently, I was asked during an interview who God was to me. Immediately, without thinking I responded that when I think of God, the first thing that comes into my mind is that He is faithful. His faithfulness is one of His strongest character traits that I know Him by and rely on.

I began to think about this question of who God was to me over the course of the next week. During those few days I was also studying the topic of worship, and I stumbled across a point in my Bible's commentary that struck a deep cord in my spirit. The commentary said this:

 "Worship and service to God must never be taken lightly.

We must worship according to what He has revealed about Himself in His word."

As I read this, I realized how much creative license we take with "who we think God is." Now, to each of us, a trait of the Lord may stand out as stronger than it may stand out to another, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, there are times when we can form a picture of God from our perceptions or our desires and interpretations. Instead of falling to our knees and taking God as who He says He is in His entirety, we cherry pick the Bible. We can have the tendency to ignore parts of who God is while magnifying other parts to suit our comfort, or to suit what we want God to be like.

For example, I got into a conversation recently about the Lord, and the person I was talking to continually talked about how God was sovereign in their life and had moved them away from a pernicious place to a place that was much better for them. And there's truth in this statement because the Lord is sovereign and He does direct our paths. However, this person went on to talk about how everybody in the world serves the same God but just calls Him by a different name, and that all of those different paths lead to Heaven.

No.

See, Jesus tells us that He is the only way to God, that the road to Heaven is narrow, that there are wolves in sheep's clothing feeding us false teaching, and that if we are not for Him, we are against Him. So in this case, the person I was talking to was magnifying one aspect of the Lord that they were comfortable with, while simultaneously removing the fact that God condemns all other "gods."

We cannot worship God from pure hearts if we are worshiping a version of God that we created ourselves.  At that point, we're not worshiping God, but an idol. We have no say whatsoever in who the Lord is. And you know what? I'm so thankful for that. God is so much more than I could ever ask for or imagine and I am so in love with Him and who He is. Now, there are certain aspects of the Lord that are hard to understand, or that I can't comprehend because it is so above me. But when that happens I have learned to pray for wisdom and understanding. 

About a year ago I was studying the book of Numbers. At that point, I was much weaker in my walk with God, and was at a place where I did not trust Him. He hadn't done anything that caused me not to trust Him, but because of my inner monologue that I had developed through life that people were not trustworthy, I projected that same monologue onto the Lord. As I was studying one day, I came across Numbers 14:11, which says this: "The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to trust me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?" 

After I read this, I fell to my knees and felt like the Holy Spirit broke open a river in my spirit. I realized how stupid I had been to not trust the Lord after all I have seen Him faithfully carry me through and after reading all of the promises He has for me in His word. From that point on, God's faithfulness is always on the tip of my tongue and I am so much closer to Him. 

You see, I can't call God untrustworthy, because He simply is not untrustworthy. Furthermore, I can't worship God in the fullness of who He is if I am treating God as an untrustworthy father. I can feel that way, and be misguided, but all of the misguided feelings in the world don't change the truth of who God is. I don't have the creative license to change Him -- I was not (and never will be) given that power. 

I am so thankful that God loves His broken and wayward children. Because that is exactly what we are without Him: broken and wayward. Apart from Him we are nothing but dry bones, lost with no identity. But He loves us so much, and He takes us and gives us purpose and power. The knowledge of that just fills me up and lights my heart on fire and brings such joy out of me that I can't even stand it. So please, please let go of whatever lies you've believed about God. He is perfect just the way He is, and if we could only press on further and deeper into who He is, we would understand that there is no reason to create our own version of who and what God is. Then and only then can we truly worship the Lord with pure hearts, throwing off this world and gaining back our souls. 

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:16-19).