Many of us have heard the phrase “I have Jesus in my heart” which attempts to describe a relationship that is both as concrete and yet as intangible as it could possibly be. This can be quite confusing to those who have not been brought up in a culture of Christian-speak, and it is downright bizarre to children.
Several years ago, upon hearing the story of the baptism of Jesus, which featured the appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove, my then 5-year-old grandson Jace was astonished.
“So, wait. God is a bird? I have a bird living inside my heart?”
Recently I received this text message from my daughter about her 3-year-old daughter.
“When Sparrow is running and jumping and her heart rate goes up, she can hear the Thump Thump of her heart in her ears. She thinks it is Jesus trying to tell her something. And she says, ‘What’s that Jesus? I can’t understand you.’ But he doesn’t clarify. And she is becoming very irritated with Jesus about it. I have tried to explain it to her, but it seems she’s not accepting my explanation. I guess I will have to let Jesus sort it out with her himself.”
I feel you, Sparrow.
As a child, I pictured God as a cosmic version of my mother’s father who died when I was 7 or 8. William Scott was a thin, soft-spoken carpenter with a southern accent and a gentle laugh. He always shared a midafternoon Coca- Cola with me (it was in a cold, six-ounce bottle… all cane sugar of course). He had a head full of wavy, pure white hair all perfectly trimmed and neatly combed.
I don’t know how this combination of attributes made the man I called Granddaddy the icon of the Almighty in my mind, but I did picture God with wavy, pure white hair late into my adolescence!
C.S. Lewis wrote, “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time and time again. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast.” We are flesh and blood and though we know that God is not limited to flesh and blood we cannot think very far beyond our own experiences which are bounded chiefly by three dimensions of space and linear time. For this reason, ever since God made us in his image, we have been trying to remake him in ours.
The miracle of Jesus Christ is that God has taken up his creation into himself and become one of us. Jesus was not part man and part god. Rather, Jesus was truly God at the same time He was truly man. The gospel accounts of the Bible record the words and acts of Jesus. When we read what He has said, it is God saying it. When we watch him act, we are watching God act.
Learning how God speaks personally through his Holy Spirit, as C.S. Lewis and my grandchildren will attest, is a weird and sometimes frustrating process of search, discovery, reality checks and faith. If God is real, and I believe he truly is, then it is very important that my image of him be grounded in him and not just a supersized picture of my own sensibilities and ideals. Knowing and being challenged by what the Bible says, worshipping God with the church family, taking the risk to obey and live by what I am learning, and most of all remaining teachable… these are some of the ways I can grow, not just in my composite picture of God, but better yet, in my personal relationship with him.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Pastor Dave Harvey, who has served as pastor of Grand Marais Evangelical Free Church since February of 2008.
Leave a Reply