Who is God to Me: Part 2 -- God as a lover

RELATED POST: Who is God to ME?

If you look back at one of my earlier posts you will notice that I asked myself the question "Who is God to me?"  I then went on to discuss some of the characters that make up God and how they relate to me.  Recently, in a conversation with nearly a complete stranger, an interesting concept was brought up.  She mentioned the idea of God as a lover.  This isn't the first time I have thought of something like this, but never thought of it as that word.  To be completely honest, when she first mentioned it I was caught off guard.  God? A lover?  The thought at first was awkward, but I quickly remembered the Bible.  The Bible mentions numerous places that the church is the bride of Christ (among similar notions).  For a reference to such places check out this website: http://www.jimfeeney.org/brideofchrist.html.

The first thing that made me think of the concept of God as a lover was something I heard in class or chapel.  I thought about people and facebook, and how these things could relate to God.  One of the first things I think of when I think of facebook is addiction and obsession.  However, though it is a bit awkward, I then thought of facebook stalking.  I feel if we were all honest with each other we would admit to a bit of facebook stalking at one point or another.  Think about it, who hasn't spent time looking at a guy or girls page for no reason other than they thought they liked them?  Have you ever been dating someone and then checked everything they did on facebook?  Not in a creepy or possessive way, but in a curious, cute, wanting to know them as best as possible kind of way?  Do you see where I am going?

I think if Jesus had a facebook he would want us to stalk him.  He wants us to dig into everything we can about him.  Is it a bad idea to know how Jesus is working in our friends lives, or even strangers lives?  Shouldn't we seek to know him better in every single way?  Would it really be that bad to stalk Jesus if we define stalking to be pursuing closely, following intently, desiring to know everything about, and/or obsessing over?  I think that we should.  Some people take facebook stalking to an unhealthy level of obsession and I am obviously not recommending this or encouraging it.  However, people sometimes think they love someone and then become obsessed with this "love" and unhealthily become stalkers.  Stalking a person out of love will only bring an insatiable desire for more.  However, "stalking" Jesus should only satisfy and cause a healthy hunger for more.  I know that the use of the term stalking is often negative, but I hope that you are seeing the conclusion that I am trying to make.  It makes perfects sense to me, but trying to get others to see conclusions that I have discovered is something I sometimes struggle with.

The point being, we should pursue God with the same (or more) vigilance that we do other things in our lives.  We spend every waking minute pursuing things that we love.  Some examples of things people love are: research, books, video games, music, movies, relationships, and adventure.  When we love something we have an unquenchable desire for more.  However, the problem I see is that we love things other than God.  We place God lower in our list of desires.  People who stalk people on facebook want to learn and know everything they can about a particular person.  If stalking Jesus means wanting to learn and know everything about Him, I see this as nothing but positive and wholesome.  (Ok, I realize that we need to do something with the things we learn from "stalking" Jesus, but thats a different topic, and one must start a craving Jesus first)

Hopefully you have followed me thus far with little to no confusion in the end.

Anyway, I realize that I have never been married or had a lover.  However, I have dated, and in some perhaps minuscule way this is a taste of what a lover would be.  I know that when you really like someone (at least you think) you want to spend as much time with them as possible.  Your desire to be with them becomes your greatest desire.  This is what it would be like to have Jesus/God as a lover.  God IS with us every single moment, but we are not always with Him.  Seeing God as a lover kind of puts a light into many situations.  As a matter of fact, until God is accept and seen as a lover, I am not sure humans have any right to get married.  How can we expect to be a good lover with another human if we are incapable of being a lover with the perfect Almighty?  After all, God created love, God is love, and only through Him can we ever hope to truly love.  After seeing that God is the perfect lover, and that we can be his lover, should we consider attempting to be a lover with someone else.

Another interesting thing I found was from the book Desire, by John Eldredge.  I have yet to read the book but found this from someone's facebook status a week ago. (thanks!)

"God creates mankind for intimacy with himself, as his beloved. We see it right at the start, when he gives us the highest freedom of all-the freedom to reject him. The reason is obvious: love is possible only when it is freely chosen. True love is never constrained; our hearts cannot be taken by force. So God sets out to woo his beloved..." 

Wow.  I think that basically summed it up for me when I first saw that.  After having thought about God being a lover over break, my realizations with facebook stalking, and then this status I knew that God as a lover was a great way to view Him.  This is just one more way that we can view the entire person of God.  For me, God as a lover is a challenging thing because like any relationship it is a commitment.  A commitment with God goes beyond a lifetime commitment, its eternal.  How much more important is this commitment than any one I could make with a human under the title "lover"?

1 John 4:19 says "We love because he first loved us."  My challenge this time is to consider this: God is already committed to me as being a lover, have I accepted this; do I desire to be God's lover and have Him be mine?  Personally, I choose yes, no matter the consequence, no matter the commitment, and no matter the sacrifice.  This simply means that I have to submit to God and accept Him as all His other persons as well.

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
Zach Haas

Who is God to ME?

After about an hour of messing with the new template creator, I decided it was time to actually write the post for today.  Naturally after a distraction comes a disaster so my computer decided to freeze.  Anyway, I have something a little more thoughtful that I want to write about soon, but due to time I'll be saving that for a later date.

For today I want to talk about something that I first first thought about during the during summit 2010.  Yes I am sure that we all remember it, the one that made the sheltered home-schoolers mouths hit the floor.  Anyway, I am not sure that what I started thinking about has anything to do with the messages, but it has to do with the person of God.  Who is he exactly?  And more specifically, what is he to me?

We have all heard the Christian God called numerous things as we've grown up.  Jehovah (provider), Father, Counselor, Friend, Alpha and Omega, Yahweh (divine, more personal name for God), King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elyon (most high), Prince of Peace, and maybe even Allah.  However, I was realizing that God has each of these names for a reason.  Each person looks at God as a little bit different.  Many people look to God to fill something that is missing in their lives.  As a matter of fact, a popular atheistic stance is that God isn't real because he is just a wonderful illusion of something that we don't have, or something that we want.  So I began thinking what is God to me, and how do I treat him?

For the record, I do not believe God is any one of these things.  The truth is the opposite -- God is all of the above.  God made all these things and many of them already have places on Earth.  We have fathers, and kings and counselors and friends.  So why do we call God these things?  I believe we call him these things because these are what we hold as most dear and powerful.  To a child, no one is greater than daddy, not even a different daddy comes close.  To a servant no one is greater than his king, lord, or master.  We use these words to describe God because we have nothing better.  Our minds can not comprehend words to describe how great God really is so we give him what is greatest to us.  That said, there is nothing wrong with giving God any of these titles.

Friend -- what God is to me.  Many of you may have heard me use the phrase "God and I have a special friendship relationship."  I do not know if I am entirely right or nearing heresy, but I enjoy having God be a friend and treat him as such.  I occasionally joke around with God and make humorous statements concerning Him or something about Him.  I even sometimes pretend to predict what God what say.  Something I might say is "God is probably like... well that was a dumb move wasn't it?" Or something along those lines.  It is ok to have fun with God?  It's no different than I would treat myself.  If God made us according to His own image, shouldn't that mean that God also has a sense of humor?  I believe that it does.  I also believe that there is a degree of appropriateness.  It would be foolish to mock the Lord or to try and make him appear out of control or less powerful than he is.  But I have not felt convicted nor have I developed any terrible diseases or gotten hit by lightning lately so for now I believe I am ok.

The problem is this.  Sometimes it is easy to look at God as a friend.  Friends can be viewed too easily as equals.  I think that there have been times in my life that I have placed God into the friend box ignoring the fact that he is much more.  I don't think that it's something I really struggle with but I am sure there have been times.  It's important to remember that God is a few more things.

Lord-- is probably the easiest one for me to see God as.  When I think of the word Lord I think about savior.  I think about how he is the one who is going to save me when all is said and done.  The Lord will have mercy on me in the end and he, through Jesus, will be the one welcoming me into heaven.

King-- is one I may struggle with most.  A king is someone who rules over you.  He essentially has the right to tell you exactly what to do.  Going against the king and his will results in death in most cases.  This is the same way God as king works.  However, he is also a forgiving king who gives mercy.  God places rules and boundaries in our lives.  He wants us to be his willful servants, not forced slaves.  He also wants his servants to build his kingdom.  I highly doubt that I am alone when I say this is a tough person to have God be.  How often do we care more about our own personal kingdoms than God's?  I know that there have been times in my life when I was not building God's kingdom.  Every time we conform to the ways of our non-Christian, or even Christian friends we are not building God's kingdom.  Unfortunately, there is way to much of the denying Peter in most all of us.  A king is also to be respected and honored by his people.  If God is our King how much more should he be honored and respected?  When we become like the people of this worldly kingdom, we are not respecting and honoring the heavenly kingdom of God.  Seeing God as my king is something I still need to work on at times.

Many of the characters of God are easier to see and accept for me.  I can see God as Jehovah and all the things he provides for me.  I can see him as the one true divine Lord, Yahweh.  He is my beginning and end, counselor and father.  I need to remember daily that God is all these things to me and more.  I need to be able to give God the respect and honor that he deserves in each of these positions.  It is important to make sure that we are not accidentally looking at God as only one of the above.  I need to make sure I am not limiting God by confining Him to one area or another.  All parts of my life need to be dictated and mandated by Him and through Him.  There is no one like my God.  What about yours?

I challenge you to think of as many things/names/descriptions as you can for God.  Then see how you line up with each.  Do you see God as a father but struggle to see him as Lord?  Or do you see him as a counselor who is there to fix your problems but forget that he is your creator?  Ask yourself which relationship is easiest for you to have with God, which one is most common, and then which relationship is hardest, or least common, in your life.  Perhaps you will find something in your walk that you have never noticed before.

My prayers are with you all, thank you for reading :)

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
-Zachary Haas