God as I Understand Him

If I don't believe in God as presented in the Bible, am I an atheist?  That depends.

The  Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous refer to a "Power" and then twice refer to "God as you understand Him."  J.B. Phillips,  the Anglican scholar, published his famous Your  God is Too Small in 1952. I will not summarize his classic book, I will simply borrow his title to say that no matter how big your God may be, He's too small.  Taoism, an ancient Chinese "philosophy" says of itself that if you can define it, then it's not the Tao.  That's the way I feel about God. If you are so cocksure you know who God is, then that's not my God.

The Cloud of Unknowing, a fourteenth century book of Christian mysticism, says basically the same thing. "The underlying message of the work suggests that the way to know God is to abandon  God's particular activities and attributes, and be courageous enough to surrender ones' mind and ego to the realm of 'unknowing' at which point one may begin to glimpse the nature of God." Wikipedia

So am I saying that I don't believe in God?   I'm just saying that I don't believe in the God you're so sure about. I don't believe in God as presented in  the Old and New Testaments. And you don't either. You pick and choose certain aspects you like about Him from the Bible and then you dismiss the other aspects. Let me suggest several examples. You like the story of Noah and the Ark.  The story you know is a very nice story. Before God destroys the whole world, he saved one family and a bunch of animals. You like that.  That ark you've seen with the two giraffes sticking their head out the windows is a beautiful picture. After the floods receded, God placed a rainbow in the sky and promised that He would never destroy the world by flood again. You like that.  You tell it to your children before they go to bed.  Noah and the Ark is no doubt one of the most beloved children's stories of all time. The abridged version is a really nice story. That rainbow part is especially nice. But Donald Miller reminds us in Blue Like Jazz that if you believe the whole story,  the unabridged version, God did some pretty horrible things.   As the torrential rains fell and the floods gushed through hills and valleys, thousands of babies' heads were dashed  against rocks and trees.  Millions of miniature poodles, dachshunds, Labrador retrievers and kittens,  with nowhere to run, gulped their last breath of air and drowned. In verse 13 of Genesis chapter 9, God  places the rainbow in the sky. You like that. In verse 20, Noah gets drunk and is lying naked in his tent. And Noah cursed his son, who was trying to help him, for seeing him that way. Did God pick the right family? Did drowning all those babies and puppies fix anything? Keep reading Genesis and you'll find that post-ark mankind was not much different than pre-ark mankind. Did destroying the whole world accomplish God's purposes?

In 2 Samuel 6 ,David and all of Israel are "celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals"  They are rejoicing before the ark of the Lord.  The people of God have never been any happier or optimistic. Everything is right with the world. But then the  ox stumbled. Uzzah, concerned that the ark was going to fall, put his hand out to steady the ark and God struck him dead. "And he died there before the ark of the Lord." In Bible world, that's okay because God had told them not to touch the ark of the covenant.  God was simply meting out the punishment He had threatened. But put it in the context of our world. Somebody kills another man because he did something he told him not to do.  In our world we call it murder; the perpetrator goes to prison for the rest of his days.

You like the God of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want... Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. for you are with me." But do you like the God of the previous Psalm, Psalm 22, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. by night but I find no rest."

But you say,"This is the God of 'the Old Book', I believe in the God of the New. When Jesus came He showed us what God was really like. God is now the loving Father of Jesus. The book of Acts is the record of the first Christians just after Jesus had ascended to the Father. Chapter 5 records the account of Ananias and Sapphira. The story is a favorite among preachers and full-time evangelists right before they take up the offering. Both of these early believers lied to Peter about the amount of their offering. They both said that they had given all of the proceeds of their land when they had kept some of it for themselves.  Granted, lying about anything is not a good thing, especially lying to a saint-to-be like Peter. But what happens next to me is an indication that God hadn't changed all that much. He executed both of them right on the spot. "Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events." No joke!

So, am I an atheist?  No, I am far from an atheist. Just because I have serious problems with the God of the Bible doesn't mean I don't believe in God.  Far from it.   I believe in the God of Moses who asked God ,"Who shall I tell Pharaoh sent me?" And He said, "Tell him 'I am' sent you." I believe in the God of Jesus who said, "I am the bread. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the door. I am the light of the world. I am the true vine. I am the way, the truth and the life."

"But David, you can't have it both ways. Either you believe in the God as presented in the Bible or you don't believe in God." Think of it like this. If a young girl grows up with a very physically abusive father who hit her and beat her when he got angry,  years later in her counselor's office does she talk about the horrible abuse or when her father took her to Baskin Robbins to apologize?  I'm just saying that in Bible world we forgive Him of His trespasses against us, but in this world we lock people up for doing much less.

"So David, what are you saying? What do you want me to take from this?"  I'm not asking you to not read the Bible.  I'm not asking you to not believe in God.  I'm inviting you discover a kinder, gentler God, And a much bigger God than one contained in a book, even The Good Book.  John records in John 21 that the whole world couldn't contain all the good works of Jesus.  Your God is Too Small. When asked, God told Moses, "My name is 'I Am.'  'I exist'. Leave it at that."

I'm listening to  O Magnum Mysterium, published in  Rome in 1569,  This ancient Latin text has been set to music by composers through the ages. This arrangement by Morten Lauridsen was published in 1994, This music and ancient text draw me in and turn my soul outward. "O great mystery and wonderful sacrament that animals should see the new-born Lord." The God of animals who worship His baby boy in a manger in Bethlehem.  The Unknowing. The Mystery. Now that's a God I can believe in.  That's God as I understand Him. Tell that to your children.