Who is Your God? Psalm 103

Our family owns a German shepherd named Misty. She loves the kids and would never intentionally hurt a child.

One day my younger son Adam invited his friend Michael over to play for the first time. When I told Michael that we have a German shepherd he informed me that he couldn’t come into the house because he was allergic to dogs. It was a beautiful day, so I was glad to have the boys stay outside. However, Michael didn’t want to stay outside the whole time. He thought he would be alright going in the house if we just kept the dog away from him. I wasn’t so sure, since the house is full of dog hair. But Michael was certain that it was the dog he was allergic to, not the dog hair.

When his father came to pick him up I mentioned Michael’s dog allergy. He replied, “Michael isn’t allergic to dogs!” As I had suspected, just knowing that we have a German shepherd had scared Michael. He had no intention of meeting her. However, if he had met her he would have discovered that she was no threat to him. I lot of people have this kind of reaction toward Misty. They have a mental image of German Shepherds as vicious, so in their minds she is.

Sometimes we treat God the same way Michael treated Misty. We have a negative image of God, so we are afraid of God.

Our mental images

On the surface we all probably have fairly positive images of God. Many of us have heard plenty of scriptures and sermons that tell us God is love. We know in our heads that God is gracious and forgiving and all sorts of good things. But deep in our hearts we may have a different image of God.

You see, it’s quite possible to know something in our heads but not fully accept it in our hearts. Let’s say you’re afraid of heights. You go up to the 42nd floor observation deck in the Corning Tower in Albany. Your head can tell you that looking out the windows is perfectly safe. Your heart will still tell you not to go anywhere near those windows because something awful is sure to happen. No matter what your head says, your heart is not convinced.

The same sort of thing can happen when it comes to what we think and feel about God. Our heads say, “God loves me.” But our hearts may say, “God is critical, exacting, and grumpy.” Our heads may tell us that God accepts us as we are. But our hearts may tell us that God sets impossibly high standards of perfection and gets angry when we miss the mark. One of the longest distances in the world is the 18 inches between our heads and our hearts.

When we think about our hearts' beliefs about God it helps to know where many of those beliefs come from. Psychologists tell us that when we are still very young children we form our beliefs about God based upon our beliefs about our parents.

Our parents are god-like beings in our lives. They have god-like power over us. We think they have god-like power in the world. We expect them to be god-like in their perfection, and can be quite disillusioned when we learn that they make mistakes, sometimes very serious ones.

We associate our parents with God and we subconsciously think that God is like our parents. If our parents were all loving, had all wisdom, never made unreasonable demands on us, never lost their tempers, never criticized us unfairly, and in general were perfect, then they gave us an accurate image of what God is really like. However, we all know that nobody has ever had faultless parents. So if our deep down heart-felt understanding of God is based on our flawed parents, then our understanding of God will also be somewhat flawed or distorted.

There are so many distorted ideas we can get about God. We may believe God is critical and will never be satisfied with anything we do. We may suspect we have to earn God’s love through hard work or good behavior. We may be afraid to make mistakes because we expect God to punish us harshly. If our parents abandoned us emotionally or physically, we may fear that God will abandon us. If our parents abused us in any way we may fear that God will abuse us.

In addition to modeling our understanding of God after our parents, there are other ways that we form our deep seeded image of who God is and what God is like. If we have suffered from many different kinds of hardships we may feel in our hearts that God doesn’t care, or that God wants us to be unhappy, or other negative things about God.

We may have been taught things about God that cause us to be afraid of God. A few centuries ago a preacher named Jonathan Edwards was used by God to bring spiritual renewal to New England. One of his most well-known sermons was entitled “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” He painted a verbal picture of God dangling sinners over the abyss of hell ready to let them drop. A lot of people repented of their sins after hearing him preach like that. But I can’t help wondering if those people ever got over their terror of God to the point where they could experience God’s love for them.

We may have been betrayed by someone we love, so we assume we cannot trust in God’s love for us. So many things from outside us can shape our inner image of God. Very few of these things shape an accurate, positive image. More often our images of God cause us to fear God and avoid intimacy with him.

Henri Nouwen wrote in his book With Open Hands:

“Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow the other to enter into the very center of your person, allow him to speak there, allow him to touch the sensitive core of your being, and allow him to see so much that you would rather leave in darkness. And when do you really want to do that? Perhaps you would let the other come across the threshold to see something, to touch something, but to let him into that place where your life gets its form, that is dangerous and calls for defense.

The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly closed fists. This image shows the tension, the desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.

The story about an old woman brought to a psychiatric center exemplifies this attitude. She was wild, swinging at everything in sight and scaring everyone so much that the doctors had to take everything away from her. But there was one small coin which she gripped in her fist and would not give up. In fact, it took two men to pry open that squeezed hand. It was as though she would lose her very self with that coin.” (p. 12)

A few pages later Nouwen wrote,

“When you pray, then, the first question is: How do I open my closed hands? Certainly not by violence. Nor by a compulsive decision. Perhaps you can find a way to pray in the words of the angel to the frightened shepherds, the same words the risen Lord spoke to his disciples: ‘Do not be afraid.’” (p. 16)

This is why our inner understanding of God is so important when we seek to know God more intimately. If our image of God is of someone whom we fear, then we will not seek intimacy with that God. We will come to God with closed hands, fists that refuse to let God in. We will only open our hands, our hearts, toward God if we are not afraid of God.

Your image of God

So, before you read any further, I’m going to ask you to think about your image of God. Take some time to ask yourself, “Who is my God? What is my God like?” Don’t settle for quick, easy answers. Ask God to help you look deeply into your heart. Take several minutes to remain silent and prayerful.

Some of your most deeply held beliefs about God are no doubt accurate. However, you have probably discovered some of the things you believe in your heart disagree with what you know to be true in your head. Let’s look now at a truer image of God and think about how we can take that image into our hearts.

A truer image of God

If we want to know what God is like the best place to look is in the Bible. Read Psalm 103:1-18, and pay special attention to how God is described:

God forgives all our sins. God heals all our diseases. God redeems our lives and crowns us with steadfast love and mercy. God satisfies and renews our hearts. God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God does not give us what our sins deserve. God’s love is as big as the heavens. God removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. God has compassion for his children. God’s love for us lasts forever. Those are true, accurate descriptions of God; words that we can take to heart.

If we want to have right beliefs about God we have to know what the Bible actually says about God. But since knowing with our heads doesn’t necessarily lead directly to knowing with our hearts, we have to do more than just read the Bible and input the facts.

One way to get the truth deeper inside is to meditate on what we read. Meditating on God’s truth is like chewing a piece of gum. You pick a verse or passage, like part of this psalm, and, by reading and re-reading it you mentally chew it over and over again. As you read you ask God to make the truths come alive to you. You ask God to show you where in your life you need a particular truth. There is one big difference between chewing on God’s truth and chewing gum: the longer you chew gum the blander and more tasteless it becomes, while the longer you chew on God’s word, the tastier, more nourishing it gets.

I encourage you to spend some time each day this week meditating on Psalm 103. You don’t have to spend a long time. Maybe just five to ten minutes a day. When you grab your morning cup of coffee, instead of reading the paper read this psalm. Or during your morning break at work. Or just before bed at night.

Often in order for us to really incorporate God’s truth at a heart level we need to experience inner healing. Some of the things we believe about God are based on very hurtful memories. Those beliefs will only change when the memories of the experiences that created them are healed. God can heal those memories. God wants to heal those memories. Sometimes God uses conversations with a professional Christian counselor or with a pastor to bring about that healing. Sometimes God leads us to read an insightful book and apply it to our own lives. Sometimes God touches our hearts during a formal time of healing prayer. Sometimes we need help from someone else, and sometimes all we have to do is offer our woundedness to God in prayer.

Many people are afraid to get close to God. One part of us truly desires intimacy with God. That part of us resonates with Psalm 42:1 and 2 – “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” But another part of us holds onto self with tightly closed fists. We are afraid to let God get too close because we don’t trust God not to hurt us. God wants to draw us near. God wants to bless us with love and grace. God wants us to know him for who he truly is. Do we have the courage to confront our fears and open our hands, our hearts, to God?

Judy Humphrey-Fox is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church. She currently is the pastor of Middle Grove United Methodist Church and First United Methodist Church of Lake Luzerne(New York). This message was given on August 10, 2008 and is reprinted with permission.

Sign Up Here! Email: