C6, B2, J8

“’I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” Revelation 1:8

 

 

 

 

 

What is your God?

 

Kind of a strange question isn’t it?

 

Shouldn’t it say, who is your God?

 

But I think questioning the what is more appropriate than the whom.

 

Why?

 

Because some of us go through life truly thinking God is a what and not a whom.

 

Want to find out which one is yours?

 

Take a look at your prayers. What are they filled with? What makes up the sentences that float together in your brain to send up to your god minute by minute?

 

Are they an endless list of wants and needs?

 

Are the feelings about the one you call god, positive or negative?

 

Is it anger? Is it contempt? Is it a void between prayers? Is it neither here nor there?

 

Those answers will tell you what or whom your god is.

 

Why the questions you ask? Hear me out.

 

The conversation went something like this.

“Your God is pointless. What does it matter? I tried praying to Him but I got nothing. I asked for help and I was left alone. He didn’t give me what I wanted; in fact it got worse, so He’s useless. Why did I go through the pain and hurt—your God-stories are a lie. I’m still miserable. God doesn’t care about me.”

 

Yes, it was a real conversation. And I have to say, it wasn’t the only one I’ve had with this person. And it won’t be the last. The topic remains the same—MY God is useless. MY God didn’t solve the problem. MY God didn’t answer her prayers.

 

And she is right!

All of that and more.

She has every right to feel that way.

She has every right to disparage MY God.

 

Because… she sees God as a what, not a whom.

The god she envisions is merely a cosmic vending machine.

A god she doesn’t need until her tummy is grumbling and she needs a little “pick me up” to get her through the problem at hand.

Her god is one with buttons and moving parts and glass on the front where she occasionally walks up to, puts in her request, crosses her fingers, pushes a plastic dot and out comes her desired solution.   It then falls to the bottom tray where she can just reach forward, scoop it out and go on with her day—satisfied until the next grumbling.

 

Of course she would be upset at God!

How could she not?

She pressed and didn’t get what she wanted. God, to her, is a dispenser. He is nothing more than a machine sitting in the heavens waiting for her request so He can fill the order.

 

I’ve been there. Have you?

 

Life gets real full of problems and events and issues that take a huge machine to make it all right. I think we’ve all been there—lined up at the ready sending request after request after request upward expecting the solution to fall down our way so we can grab and go.

 

But that is our reasoning…not His.

 

And there, do you see, God becomes a what, not a whom.

 

We forget that we are not here in this life for God to serve us. We are here to serve God.

 

He is the Creator, we are the creation—where do we reason that He should bow to us? It’s awful big of us, don’t you think? Where do we make the jump that He is to serve our needs and not the other way around?

 

Hear me loud and clear, I am not disputing scripture when it tells us to bring Him our burdens and He will lighten our load, certainly that is true. It is a promise from Him to us. But most of the time we have manipulated that offer into an absolute.

 

We have turned The King into a convenience.

 

But what if our day begins and ends with seeing God, as the magnificent God He is? Wouldn’t that take Him from a machine to a Master? Wouldn’t we be more willing to fall face first at His feet then to stand over Him near the throne?

 

Our God—yours and mine, is a loving God. He hears our pleas, sees our tears, and rejoices in our triumphs.

 

But it is up to us to first see Him as a who and not a what.

 

May we find the place where we show reverence before we seek requests.   May we fill our day, asking the Creator from the creation,  “How can I serve YOU today?”