What Kind of God is God?

The thinking of some people is that He is a God who demands perfection. If we hope to gain entry into heaven, we had better tow the line, otherwise we could expect utter abandonment and damnation. This God of religion is not a God who gives people permission to embrace life in all of its ambiguity and complexity, let alone to embrace our humanity in all of its ambiguity and complexity. This, in fact, is a God who refuses to recognize ambiguity altogether, who forces people to see the world in dualistic categories...good and bad, black and white, right and wrong...with no allowance whatsoever for anything in between.


This God, like the fundamentalists who invented him, views the Believers life as a steady ascent toward holiness. Once a person is born again, once the “sinners prayer” is prayed, you could expect to move onward and upward in your faith, and if didn’t maintain that course, if you falter along the way, well, you were made to feel guilt and shame and subject to the discipline of the more spiritual elite. Is that the cause for the belief in religion that there are spiritual plateaus to attain on our spiritual journey.


I no longer agree that a believer’s life is a steady climb toward holiness once we begin our walk with God, rather I view it as a journey with twist and turn, ups and downs with bumps and  perhaps a detour along the way because of a mudslide. AHHH but, along the course of that journey the Father is with us, He never leaves or forsakes us and we feel the embrace of the loving Father He is, who loves us unconditionally in spite of the mistakes we make or the potholes we fall into. It is a journey of joy and sometimes sadness, triumph and tragedy but, NEVER, NEVER without the love and compassion of our loving Father and the journey will lead to a glorious union with Jesus our Lord and Savior, who somehow along this relational journey takes our broken lives and makes us whole. Friend...Friend...that is the Gospel and it is good news!