What is your picture of God? Does God like you – enough to want to be in relationship with you? Do you need to earn God’s affection? Is God’s affection and favour only available as reward for good behaviour?

In his book, Signposts to Spirituality, Trevor Hudson has a chapter on the Picture of God. He names 4 types that people sometimes have: 1) Impersonal Force. 2) Heavenly Tyrant – waiting to jump on anyone who wanders beyond the boundaries of his will. 3) Scrupulous Bookkeeper of Sin – walks around with a clipboard and each time we sin he puts a big black mark against our name. 4) Candy Dispensing Machine – a magic genie designed to respond favourably to our every whim.

He forgot the god who is only taken down and dusted off when needed – described by Peter Rollins as the “Deus Ex Machina” = God of the machine:

You might know it as a motorcycle brand, but it goes back to the open air theatres of ancient Greece. A crane–like contraption would lower a person onto the stage, indicating the introduction of a supernatural character into the play, usually to resolve some hiccup in the story line by his powers…

This represents a view whereby we live our lives and keep God on ice, until the day we encounter some hiccup, and then we call on him to come and do our bidding and make our problems go away, after which he may exit stage right and be put back on the shelf until the next time.

How might we adjust our thoughts and expectations about God in order to know the real God?

Mark