Who is God to you?

It can be a surprisingly tough question since we’ve all been told so many different answers over the years. Churches, parents, teachers, friends— all the people in our lives have shared their views with us many times, and all of these perspectives swirl together in our minds and guide how we answer the original question: Who is God to you? When you saw this question at the top of the page and gave your first knee-jerk response, you may have used other people’s words or ideas, but was the answer still your answer?

As you search for your answer, know that it may be shaped by many different factors:
How is your relationship with your biological parents?
Did you go to church as a child, and did that environment instill trust or fear?
What scars do you carry with you from your journey?
Has the road been easy or difficult?
In general, how do you feel about yourself?
From where do you derive your worth?
All of this too shapes your image of God.

You see, just as God makes humanity in God’s image,
humans understand God through our limited images.
Do you see God as an authoritarian or as a big pile of hugs?
Do you see God as male, female, or non-gendered?
Is God grand and cosmic or personal and intimate?
Is God someone you’d grab a beer with, or if you encountered God at a bar, would you keep your distance and avoid eye contact?

Or try asking yourself this one:
When I try to imagine the face of God, what human’s face am I seeing?
Does God look like your father? Your grandmother? Your pastor?
What traits of that person wind up as traits of God?
Has God embraced you? Has God abused you?
Has God rejected you? Has God pursued you?
And how much of all of this is really God, and how much is your projection of all the things you’ve lived and suffered up to this point?

Maybe some of these attributes are accurate to who God is,
but maybe some of them aren’t,
and one of the most painful and joyful tasks in the Christian life
is taking all these images we associate with God
—the smudged, dusty lenses through which we try to see God—
and, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance,
figuring out where these images originate.

It’s a lifelong task.
It’s a humbling task.
It’s a revealing task.
While much of who God is may remain guesswork on this side of eternity,
we can at least peel back some of the layers we’ve grafted onto God.
While we may not answer every question about God,
we may answer some questions about ourselves.
And once we lay some of those faulty images aside,
maybe we can adopt better images that,
while not the full picture,
can still point us toward God.

This post was inspired by the most recent conversations at Brew Theology: Jax. For more information on Brew Theology, check out our local group’s Facebook page or the Brew Theology website.