Who is God

Who is God?

1.      Santa Claus—appears now and then to shower us with gifts, if we are “nice” –he checks his list twice and if we have been “good for goodness sake” he’s supposed to bring “lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh”—good behavior=toys, bad behavior=lump of coal—feel cheated if we have been “good” and don’t get any toys

2.      Grandfather—not a father, but a doting, senile grandfather (C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p.40)—grandparents have no clout, parents discipline, grandparents coddle—grandparents spoil, parents teach obedience

3.      Traffic Cop—morally punishing evil and letting us good folks go free—what if we do evil, do we want him to punish us (e.g. caught speeding) or look the other way—zap everyone who does evil, but wink at our “minor” transgressions–race after the “speeders” but ignore our minor speeding—hypocrisy!

4.      Personal Genie—ready to do our bidding—manipulation of God—sense of entitlement, if we say the magic words or do the magic rituals, go to church, live righteously, stop drinking, etc then God owes us an answered prayer—he is obligated to give me what I want

5.      Absentee Father—he abandoned us and we must make it on our own—he really doesn’t care what happens to us

6.      Harsh Taskmaster—we can never meet his demands—too hard on us—always disciplining us

7.      Austere Judge—feel condemned, with no way to appeal—no arguing with him or he will make things worse for you

8.      Bumbling Inventor—whose creation has gotten away from him—victimized by his ineptness—how could he have not known we would mess things up when he created us?  It is his fault that we are they way we are and he should not have made us this way

9.      Powerless King—he may be the king of the universe, but he has no power to stop the bad things from happening—or if he has the power he refuses to use it

10.  Jilted Lover—Hosea (Old Testament view)—we have hurt him by going after other lovers, but he will still love us anyway and hope that one day we will come back to him

11.  Suffering Servant—he knows & understands our pain & suffering and suffers along with us

12.  Passionate Wooer—continually tries to win our love by giving us his blessings, even when we don’t appreciate or acknowledge them as coming from him