The Surreal God

We all have a picture of God in our head. I call it the Surreal God. We have in our imagination a God that is “other” that stirs up a bit of emotion, reaction and passion in us. Most people when they speak or think of God filter out anything that is not super-human, super-sized, powerful and larger than life. Just forming the word God with our lips conjures up a Zeus-like looking character who is sitting on a golden throne high above the earth using his gavel to make sharp decisions about mankind. Infused into the word God is the idea of “Bigness.” Those who believe in God believe he is powerful and glorious.

Here is the odd thing; those that don’t believe in God especially in the conscience of New Atheism believe God is supposed to look Big as well. They have similar expectations on God if he did exist. In Christopher Hitchens book God Is Not Great he said “If God did exist he would eradicate evil, injustice, needless suffering, he would swoop in and fix this world.” His reasoning goes; since God doesn’t act like a god there must not be a God. In the mind’s eye of those who do believe and don’t believe I find similar expectations on God floating around. God is supposed to present himself in big ways. That’s what gods do, right?

It’s hard to know where we pick up the pieces that make up our Surreal God. They attach themselves overtime. It reminds me of when I was washing my car and discovered a layer of bugs on the front hood. I never remembered seeing them before. So I scrubbed and scrubbed but they wouldn’t come off. They somehow became one with my car. Our Surreal God situates himself in our mental/emotional world and holds a lot of influence on us. But with a bit of probing there is still a lingering question in all of us “What is God really like?”

2000 years ago the 1st Century population had the same troubles with the Surreal God. The Israelites, who had loads of content on God (Yahweh) and were convinced He would present himself in a big way. This would only make sense to them since their interpretation of the law and data led them to believe in a God who is “other.”

The Romans who did not believe in Yahweh interestingly believed God would present himself in the same way. When God was dying on a wooded cross they mocked him for claiming to be God saying “call you angels and bring yourself down if you’re God.” They had expectations that a god would look a certain way and Jesus sure did not look like any god they were familiar with.

At Christmas when we get past all the pageantry and Christian cliques, we are presented with a God that does not look like a god. They way he wields his glory does not look so glorious. Jesus' own disciple’s were confused about “Glory”. They expected glory to look a certain way, to them power presents itself with a certain feel, a certain look. At one point they’re arguing about glory. Jesus over hears and says “you don’t know what you are talking about.” Jesus knows that glory really is to reveal ones true character or true nature. Jesus follows up by expounding on glory and in his backdoor way tells them what God is really like “the first will be last… I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life away.”

For some reason in our imaginations Jesus takes a back seat to our generic big God personality picture. But Jesus' arrival to planet earth was pivotal move on God’s behalf to tell us “What God is like”. Jesus came to shatter and bring down our Surreal God so that we could truly love the real God. Jesus shows all his cards when he says “in me all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form.”

It’s hard to love a God that is Surreal. Martin Luther, a 6th century monk with brutal honesty shares his struggle with the Surreal God when he journals this “I was supposed to love this God but I couldn’t stir any up. God disliked me and I was tempted to not like him in return… then I read the stories of the God who becomes human in Jesus. And I found myself undone with love. Look to the crib where God lays vulnerable, look to the God-man who has ears to hear silent human cries, who is drawn to the weak and weak are drawn to him, who gives himself over to love that leads to his nakedness and a humbling sacrifice. This vision will lay hold of your soul and give you a God to love.”

To Give Glory to God

In the last couple years or so I’ve been increasingly aware of the phrase “for God’s Glory” or “to Glorify God”. In Christian circles this mantra is thrown around like confetti. I fully embrace that God is glorious and worthy of worship. Still, I’m not sure on a practical level if setting out to give God glory is actually giving God glory. I wonder sometimes if the pursuit might be misdirected and leading us away from where Jesus directed us. This “glory banner” seems to be causing us to smooth over unwise choices and trample love under its feet. I’ve been evaluating the effects of living by this mantra.

1. I don’t believe we have the power or vantage point to determine what does glorify God and what doesn’t. In our Christian culture we attach any semi-spiritual pursuit to the intent of glorifying God. On the flip side we speak quite confidently about what does not glorify God outside the church walls. How God gains attention or acclaim for Himself is a mystery and is something only He determines. Slapping “God was glorified” on our human actions is a little presumptuous on God himself; He is the judge and interpreter.

2. Glory is not the best target; Love for God and Love Others is. Jesus came to earth to rescue the broken human project because He loved it so much. He did not give into temptation that would take Him away from what holy love was compelling Him to do. Love for the “other” according to John 3:16 is the beginning point for “why” God did what he did. Now, because of Jesus’ laser focus on carrying out his mission of sacrificial love for every human that walks the earth, God was and is glorified. Yes, Jesus’ holy love glorified God. Love compelled by Jesus naturally glorifies God on His terms. But setting out to glorify God does not necessarily lead to a love-filled-life packed with love-filled-choices. Holy love forces our life through a refiner’s fire. It demands we push our lives through a sift (I Corinthians 13) that transforms us and transforms those around us. I’m saddened by the amount of Christians building their churches for the glory of God that are actually quite unloving.


3. Going after “giving glory to God” has caused us to blow past wisdom. Recently I heard someone say they were going to share the “plan of salvation” with someone. I asked if they were friends. They replied “well sorta.” I asked if they had modeled generosity, hospitality and service to that person. They replied “well they know what I stand for.” I began to question the wisdom of presenting God to someone they had not built a foundation of love with. They responded “well in the end all that matters is God is glorified.” He used that mantra to smooth over the lack of wisdom, patience and carefulness applied in the situation. This is not an isolated situation, I've observed this "smoothing over" with the use of that mantra all the time. Wisdom causes us to slow down, take into account the social habits of people, the history of an individual, their present needs and the complexity of human brokenness. Wisdom pushes us to be attentive, present, active listeners, thoughtful, patient and careful. Giving glory to God is too often used as a trump card over navigating situations with wisdom.

4. The attempt to give glory to God buys into the idea that God needs us to defend His reputation. God is big enough to defend himself. We don’t need to “stand up” for God. The best way to stick up for God’s reputation is by tethering to a Kingdom community of people sharing life; working to live selfless, humble, love-soaked lives with each other and amongst their neighborhoods. We have one simple life altering task; live like Jesus, love like Jesus and submit to Jesus.

5. Christianity needs a strong dose of "groundedness" instead of hanging on nebulous, head-in-the-clouds cliches. The Pharisees at one point ask Jesus what is the holiest law or “how is God most glorified”. Jesus responds with a shocking reversal; love God and love others. The way the Greek reads in this situation it could be interpreted “love God by loving others”. Jesus set a new precedent that our social/emotion/relational life must be dealt with seriously to follow Him and please God. I meet way too many “sold out for God types” who are awful at loving people well. They steam roll over others as they talk, they champion their call while not slowing down for the weaker along the path, they show favoritism to those who serve their agendas, ignore doing justice for the those who cannot reciprocate and they sing loud praise songs but neglect the emotional needs of their family.

If Christians became less obsessed with the marker of “glorifying God" and more consumed with doing the hard work of loving others the way God poured himself out in love towards us God would be supremely glorified. We’d also have a very different reputation in our country and in our local communities.