The Nature of God

So, I was back home in Tennessee last week, where 98% of my blood relatives live. Over dinner, my brother, his girlfriend, and I were having a conversation about the nature of God. My brother always has been a perfectionist. He'd tear up his own drawings even when he was a toddler, because they weren't like what he saw in his head, of course. He even once told my Uncle that "I know about more things than my mama knows" at the ripe old age of four.

But all the same, we got to talking about how we view God. Both my brother and I view God, The Father, as punitive. He is ultimately displeased with our depravity. What we have to offer is never good enough. He doesn't like us unless we're trying hard enough. Since we can never try hard enough, God is never pleased with us.

Now, the difference is that over the last two years, I have learned (and talk about nearly every week in my own personal therapy) that God is not only just but merciful and loving. God delights in me. He loves me. He is my refuge and peace. Now that I know that...I'm trying to believe. Having an even harder time experiencing it.

Now, brother's girlfriend, who grew up in a nominally Christian family, experiences God as that refuge and peace. She didn't seriously come to be a Christian until a few years ago. God, He is her lover. So, what is it that my brother and I learned in the Church, from our parents, etc. that we both internalized God as this punitive force to be feared? I can see how we got some of it from my parents...and I definitely see how we got it in church. It makes me sad, but also knowing that I know better due to the journey God has led me on for the past two years is nice. Kinda confirms He is there and he does love me. But I don't experience that yet.


Another discussion we had, at the same dinner, is about how one can KNOW one knows God. See, my brother got off on this lie that my Church growing up told me. That lie is that "Faith is not a feeling, it's a fact." (We would sing it, like a game, stand up, sit down, for every word beginning with F). Well, telling someone with my personality to divorce feelings from your faith is like telling me to cut off my left hand and write a letter.

But my brother claimed that our faith is held in our rational mind, and is not to get boogered up by all those tricky feelings. At this exact moment, I began to see how God has been working to dispel these bad theologies and beliefs through my theological and psychological education. So, I asked my brother...

1.) So, we're all fallen, right? Yeah.
2.) And our falleness is pervasive, affecting our minds, right? Yeah.
3.) So our feelings are more fallen than minds? And God gave us feelings, but they aren't part of being made in his image? Well..good point. Something to think about.

Now, I don't know how much my feelings and my rational mind play into my faith, but I know that they are both important. And that the Holy Spirit is that small still voice that works through my emotions...A LOT more often than I give him any creedence in my hyperactive "rational" mind.

And that's all I have to say about that.