I.

Separation from God

Recently, my perception of who God is has changed. I’ve focused for so long, possibly all of my life, on what I am to believe about God, but I have never thoroughly investigated my honest thoughts of Him. I have always believed that God (The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is true and loving, but He is out of reach except for maybe a sage whisper now and again. What’s more, His absence in my life is my fault: my continual desire to live for myself along with my many issues has pissed off the big guy, and now I am stuck in a relationship with the divine where neither of us is all that enthused.  

I have realized that only a small part of my perception of God was correct. He is true and loving, but the rest I got wrong. Whereas I would say that my spiritual struggle with complacency and a sinful nature separate me from God, I began to wonder if it’s not the sin that’s causing the distance, but rather me separating from Him because of my shame and application of humanistic justice, just as Adam and Eve did after they ate of the fruit and hid from the Father. The truth is, no separation takes place at all from the side of the Father, as essentially all living things exist through Him. If the Lord meets me in my delusion of Him (and my delusion of all things existing through Him), and it’s my reaction to my complacency and sin causing the divide, I figure why not focus more on the Father and less on my wrongdoings. A reprioritization. Stop apologizing all the time and make-believing and hanging the head in shame or disappointment, and approach it a different way. Didn’t God walk into Adam and Eve’s hiding place to find them? He could have left them alone and given them the side-eye for the rest of their lives or screamed at them from afar, but he didn’t. He met them where they went even though where they went was to get away from Him. God doesn’t wait, He doesn’t yell and curse at us. He meets us in whatever delusional story we are living then He patiently waits for us to hear Him. Sadly, some of us never do.  

This change of lens through which I understand the Lord becomes mind-bending the more I venture into it. A few years ago I was listening to a teaching by a man named Baxter Kruger, and something he said stayed with me. He was speaking to young parents and he told them to recall in that moment their feelings for their children, the way they love them and discipline them; the way they miss and want to take care of them; even how they drive them crazy at times. He then said this is a picture of God's feelings toward us. 

It’s a simple argument, I could tell he was being serious, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I began pairing specific instances I’ve had with my family and my feelings toward each of my children and wife during those instances to a mimicked version except the Father feeling that way toward me in those places, and it began to overwhelm me–in a good way. I felt encouraged to seek the Lord in depth through this filter of divine fatherhood though it sometimes felt a little hokie. Now I realize that hokieness was simply the construct of my false narrative crumbling to pieces. I’ve pressed through, and over the last two years, I’ve been able to expand on that original idea from Krugar. I still have my ups and downs of course, always will. But this vision of the Lord hasn’t changed. 

Here are some of the foundational mind-shifts that have helped me in my pursuit of the true God:

ONE: He never speaks through shame, fear, or anxiety. His anger, jealousy, discipline, any emotion we deem as negative, are filtered through love so that when experiencing His anger or discipline, etc, it is a joy, a true feeling of growth and breakthrough. If you feel judged or shamed for something you’ve done, it’s not Him making you feel this way. (It’s most likely you.)

TWO: God is always ready to communicate, and He’s not limited to a soft whisper. He will speak to us through anything we are into–musicals, hymnals, paintings, poetry, Nietzsche, monster trucks, bull riding, you name it, He will use it to speak to us. Moreover, any and everything we are interested in, He is also. Probably even more than we are. He put these desires inside of us and He wants to enjoy them alongside us, such as a close friend or the love of your life would. If what you are hearing and feeling is not centered around a loving relationship, it’s not Him. 

THREE: We cannot conversate with the Father unless we are honest with Him first. If I am battling anxiety and I ask Him to take it away, He is most likely not going to take it away. However, if I tell Him that I am anxious and I don’t know why, or I do know but don’t know how to deal with it, He will show me where the anxiety is stemming from and how to rid it from my life. He is about restoration, not gratification. 

…more to come