We are spiritual beings with an eternal destiny and each one of us is being spiritually formed in different lifeworlds from birth through life. Our homes, our schools, our faith community, and our playgrounds – all play a role in forming us. As disciples of Christ, most of us earnestly desire to be formed in the likeness of Christ. We may not fully comprehend or even agree on what that looks like but it is safe to say that we profess a desire to be formed into the likeness of Christ.
The question is what does our idea of Christlikeness look like? A.W. Tozer writes, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Do we see God as a loving father, a friend, a Shepherd, a companion? Or perhaps we see God as an angry judge, an old headmaster with a whip, ready to punish us as soon as we do any wrong, a scrupulous bookkeeper maintaining an up-to-date account of all our rights and wrongs, or a loving yet harsh taskmaster. What is my personal image of God? Why is this important? Our image of God is important because it affects everything. It affects the way we relate with God, with ourselves, and with others. It influences the way we see reality and live our lives on this earth. Our image of God directs the vocational choices we make, the places we choose to live in, and the individuals we choose to marry. It affects how we work, how we serve, how we rest, and how we worship.
Each of us has a professed and operational image of God. What is a professed image of God? It is what we know in our minds about God. The right answers we give about who he is. On the other hand, the operational image of God is what we truly believe in the depths of our hearts – sometimes even hidden from ourselves, something we may not even confess to ourselves. This operational image of God translates into our day-to-day living and is visible in how we lead our lives. When our professed and operational images of God are contradictory to each other, we live a dual life. Our lives begin to look different from what we profess. We may declare God’s love for us and others but unlovingly manipulate and control people around us for our personal gain. We may speak about God’s goodness and trustworthiness, all the while living in anxiety and fear for our future and our needs. We may talk passionately about Kingdom living, but hoard in our personal lives. The way we live reflects our operational image of God and therefore we need to pay attention to what that might be. Trevor Hudson writes, “A dysfunctional picture of God, expresses itself in a dysfunctional way of living.” An unhealthy image of God leads to unhealthy living.
What does a healthy image of God look like? Jesus said in John 14:9 ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’. A correct image of God will be Christ-like. Trevor writes, “If we want to get our picture of God clearer, we must look in the direction of Jesus. Through word and deed, dying and rising, Jesus introduces us to what God is really like.” So what does Jesus as a Son of God believe about His Father? He believed that his Father was good – really good, trustworthy, and reliable. He believed his Father’s words were true that is he meant what he said. He believed that when he prayed, his Father heard him. He believed that even when it was painful, His Father’s will was perfect. Jesus had the perfect image of God and he lived in the reality of God’s presence. He spoke with confidence and freedom. He lived as though God was active and present in every moment of his life, as though He cared because he KNEW it was so. Christ knew, not only because he had read God’s word well but because he had an intimacy with his Father that came from a daily encounter with Him. We too were created for deep intimacy with God. God invites us into an intimate relationship with him. Only from this place of intimacy can we realign our operational image of God to Jesus’s image of his Father and live as Jesus lived.
Perhaps we can pause here, find a quiet space and reflect on our lives. I offer these questions to reflect vulnerably in God’s presence:
1. What are some of the dominant images of God of the people around me?
2. Recall your childhood image of God. Do you think it still shapes the way you see him now?
3. Which name best describes your operational image of God? Naming our images is the first step toward freedom.
4. How does that image of God explain how you live your life?
During this time of reflection, if the Spirit shows areas of distortion, then lean into the saving grace of Jesus to heal those wrong images. Give him permission to enter those spaces revealed by the Spirit. If you sense resistance, pay attention to that and ask the Lord to search your heart and show you the cause of the resistance. When the Spirit helps us recognize those life-draining images, we can agree with the Spirit, confess them, and seek God’s help in the process to be set free to love and live well. We can intentionally engage in the process of moving towards a life-giving image of God? We can do that by walking with Jesus on the dusty roads in the Gospels and learning from him. For that we do not just study the gospels, rather we encounter Jesus as we step into the events and see what Jesus is doing, why he is doing something, and how he is walking with his Father and relating with others. We can also intentionally partner with God to change our harmful operational images of God by inviting Him into our everyday lives. As we go about our mundane activities – wash dishes, clothe our children, walk the road to the station, drive the congested roads, and make difficult conversations – we live every moment with Jesus. Frank Laubach, an American missionary to the Philippines who later created the Laubach Literacy program famously known as ‘Each one Teach one’, once wrote in his diary ‘My part is to live this hour in continuous inner conversation with God and in perfect responsiveness to his will. To make this hour gloriously rich. This seems to be all I need think about.’ God desires this ‘gloriously rich’ life for each one of us as we rediscover Him as our Christ-like God.
References:
A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, New York: HarperCollins, 1978
Trevor Hudson, Discovering our Spiritual Identity: Practices for God’s Beloved, Intervarsity Press, 2010
Frank Laubach, Letters by a Modern Mystic, Martino Publishing, 2012
Photo by Perry Z: https://www.pexels.com/photo/vibrant-autumn-japanese-maple-leaves-in-nature-28797079/
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