You Might See God Wrongly | Meditation 2
Welcome to week two of Meditations. In this series we take a short passage from Gentle & Lowly and offer a meditative prompt for you at the end. (Gentle & Lowly* is the best book I read in 2021)
“He doesn’t handle us roughly. He doesn’t scowl and scold. He doesn’t lash out, the way many of our parents did. And all this restraint on his part is not because he has a diluted view of our sinfulness. He knows our sinfulness far more deeply than we do. Indeed, we are aware of just the tip of the iceberg of our depravity, even in our most searching moments of self-knowledge. His restraint simply flows from his tender heart for his people.” (p.54)
Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistances to Christ’s love. Even when we run out of tangible reasons to be cast out, such as specific sins or failures, we tend to retain a vague sense that, given enough time, Jesus will finally grow tired of us and hold us at arm’s length… (p.46)
We project onto Jesus our skewed instincts about how the world works…
This is why we need a Bible. Our natural intuition can only give us a God like us. The God revealed in the Scripture deconstructs our intuitive predilections (bias) and startles us with one whose infinitude of perfections is matched by his infinitude of gentleness. Indeed, his perfections include his perfect gentleness. (p.23)
Reflective Prompt
We all have an image of who God is in our mind. How he responds to us in our failures and sins. The question is, is that image accurate? If we are honest, our image of God is probably based more off of our perceptions rather than his revealed truth. We tend to think of him like our impatient friends, quick to anger parents, uninterested and perpetually frustrated with our feeble attempts at living the Christian life. It’s important for us to recognize what we base our understanding of God on though. Here’s two places of meditation:
1- What characteristics of sinful people in your life do you project onto God?
2- Read Psalm 103 and let that frame God’s heart for you.
Allowing the Bible to show me who God is,
Josh.
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