God has never had a good press. The hostile, the doubtful, the misguided—few have anything good to say about this divine person:

“We must be greater than God, for we have to undo his injustice.” –Jules Renard.

“I’ve steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist.” –John Collier.

“God is but a word invented to explain the world.” –Lamartine.

“I see little evidence in this world for the so-called goodness of God. On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down as a most stupid, cruel and villainous fellow. –H.L. Mencken.

Even those who do assent to God have character-assassinated him. Some descriptions of God given by those who profess to know him would make the most convinced believer into an atheist!

For the question is not so much “Do you believe in God?” but “What kind of God do you believe in?”

Religion is an attempt to say “God is like this...” and the answers are so varied. Egyptians with their animal gods—jackals, cats, scorpions—even dung beetles. The Babylonians with Marduk, the dragon-headed god who killed the primordial goddess Tiamat, mankind springing from her blood. Greek gods on Olympia fighting and feuding, lusting and sinning.

God is like this... So many ideas, so many opinions. Even within Christianity—so many understandings of God and his real nature, from a mushy sentimental non-entity to a vindictive dictator, from a magic fairy-Godmother to a thunderbolt-weilding Godfather—and with all shades of opinion inbetween.

From the Bible and personal experience God really is like this:
Not the kind of God mentioned by any of the people above. Nor is he the kind of God described by his enemies—and even by some of his friends.

I know: A God who is intimately concerned with each of us, you and me. A God who does care about every one of his created children. A God who is all-powerful, yet a God who gives freedom to all of us. A God who only wants a relationship based on our choice of him as our ever-loving Father. A God who is totally deserving of our undivided trust.

A picture of a God who has been trying to win his case by persuasion and demonstration in the face of so many lies and deceptions from Satan, one of God’s former friends.

Jesus said many things about God. In his very life he revealed the true character of God--he came to make the Father known so that we could see him properly (John 1:18; 12:45; 14:7). But in one particular story he used such a powerful image of God’s true nature:

The parable of the ever-loving Father (Luke 15:11-32). A parable that includes all of us. All of us are strangers in foreign land, wasting our time and our money, destroying ourselves until we end up starving with the pigs. When and if we wake up to our situation and make our weary way back to our loving Father, what kind of God do we find?

A stingy, crabby old man who tells us how bad we’ve been? A thundering dictator who beats us into submission? An insipid, bored ruler who just couldn’t care less?

No. A God who runs.

When Jesus told that story he blew the minds of his hearers. In that society older people were highly respected. They were treated with much deference. And they in turn acted with due propriety, with regard to their elevated status. No one, but no one, could believe that such an elder would ever run to meet someone, certainly not someone younger, even if it was his son. How unseemly!

It’s as if Jesus is saying “God cares so much about you that he’ll run to meet you, help you on your way home, kiss you and shower you with all his healing love. In all of this God doesn’t care about his reputation or his fame. He doesn’t care about the esteem in which he is held, or what others might think of his running. He only cares about you.”

Though you must remember that God loves so much he will never force. You have to want it. You have to decide you’ll change. You have follow God’s way, or he’ll have to let you go your own way, a way that leads to self-destruction. But as you take those faltering steps back towards him, God comes running down heaven’s highway to take you home.

What a vivid picture of a God who overwhelms you with his love, reaching out his hand to you, wanting only that you should be put right and be back with him again! What a delight to know such a God, a God who welcomes you back, holds your head to his chest and weeps together with you for joy as his son comes home! What a wonderful future together with such a God who wipes away every tear from your eyes, heals and remakes you so that you can live together forever with your Eternal Friend!

What a picture of God!

© Jonathan Gallagher