Who is God – Part Three

This is part three and final part of my previous article called “Who is God”….Most of the time I live as if I had figured God all out and that there is nothing new to learn about Him. And after reading the Bible few times I feel that reading it again is just redundant. Yet it is so untrue.

Sometimes when I read the letters of the apostle Paul which stresses holy living (which is of course God’s will), and then I go back to the Old Testament and see how He worked through prostitutes and murderers, I am forced to ask Him, “Lord, who are You?” Not that I don’t know Him: it is just that He is so great and He doesn’t overlook anybody which makes it is so hard, if not impossible, to categorize Him.

I Dont Fit In Your Box by Rivera Photography © All rights reserved.

I think we all have heard the saying, “You can’t put God in a box.” Most of the time we, conservative Christians, hate this saying because we think others use this saying to justify unholy living. Yet this saying is so true. Let me give you an example. Most of the time we think we have figured grace out and know what it means, yet even grace seems to be misunderstood especially by us—long time Christians. I often times ask myself, “What does Grace mean?” You see, English is not my first language, but even in Arabic the word ‘grace’ has such a vague meaning. I think this is true primarily because we humans make sense of our world by associating things. For example, babies learn language by symbolizing this with that. They associate the words “good girl” with what makes mommy smile. Yet the word ‘grace’ has such limited use in our daily lives. We usually use the word ‘grace’ either to describe a graceful athlete, or in church.

But what does ‘grace’ in church mean if we don’t have a mental image of what it means in our daily lives? Let me explain how important it is for humans to associate a word with something tangible in understanding a word. We are all too familiar with the fact that children’s experiences with their fathers and their mental images of them affect dramatically how they see God as their heavenly Father. Another example is that when you explain to a student a new mathematical concept that has unfamiliar names such as Laplace, or Heaviside, the student usually remarks, “Don’t say Laplace, or Heaviside, just explain the math to me and what it does because the names are confusing me!” That’s simply because the student’s brain does not have a mental image, or a map that associates anything with the words ‘Laplace’ or ‘Heaviside’ so it looks very confusing to use words he doesn’t know what they mean to explain something he doesn’t know either! And I believe this is so true with the word ‘grace’.

The reason I am writing about grace in a topic that seems to deal with God’s unlimited dimensions is that in my early years as a Christian I used to describe ‘grace’ as God’s work by sending Jesus Christ to die on the Cross on my behalf so I will not perish because He loved me and saw my absolute hopelessness to save myself—which is theologically correct. However, when I lived my life I lived as if I was living by grace if I did this, and did that, and the list kept going on and on. But recently as I started thinking that I am becoming less holy by not carrying these tasks God surprised me again by showing me a different side of His character: He is showing me that living by grace is not about what I am doing but rather who I am. It is so easy for me to forget who I am, after all I am not used to be called, “Child of the living God”, or “heir of the Kingdom of Heaven”, or “saint”, or “chosen one”—but all of us, Christians, are.

My friend, if you are only happy when you do religious acts as if you are pleasing God, but miserable when you don’t do these acts then you haven’t learned about grace yet. Actually, what you are doing is idolatry because you are your own source of happiness and peace. God wants you to rest in who you are in Him, not in what you can offer Him. We cannot live by grace before we grasp who we are by grace.

I can only imagine how much more there is to know about Him, and how much more truth He is willing to reveal and teach us.

If you didn’t read anything I said but what I am going to say next then I am happy: We should get to know our Lord, who He is and how He operates based on Biblical teaching, so we will be able to obey Him. But if something happens that doesn’t fit our ideas about Him (I am not saying it doesn’t fit Biblical teaching) we should not be surprised and assume God had nothing to do with it. He promised in Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

He did not say that in all things God works according to our ideas of what is good. If you are going through very hard times because of some painful trials or disappointing outcomes be encouraged to know that God is working for your good even though it may not be like what you wanted. Keep trusting Him and obeying Him, and do not hinder His work by disobeying Him and doing things your way because you didn’t get what you wanted.

We, Christians, should be overjoyed to know that our God is not single dimensional and easy to figure out…after all who wants to trust in a God who doesn’t know much more than we do?

What is the difference between how you view God now, compared to how you view Him before you gave your life to Him? share your thoughts in the comments area below.

Thanks to  Rivera Photography for use of her image.