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What Kind Of God?


          I lift up my eyes to you, to you who sit enthroned in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us, for we have endured no end of contempt. We have endured no end of ridicule from the arrogant, of contempt from the proud. (Psalm 123)
          We are not presented with a functional god who will help us out of jams, or an entertainment god who will lighten our tedious hours. We are presented with the God of exodus and Easter, the God of Sinai and Calvary. If we want to see God the way He really is, we must look to the place of authority – to Scripture and to Jesus Christ.
          And do we really want it any other way? I don’t think so. We would very soon become contemptuous of a god whom we could figure out like a puzzle, or learn to use as a tool. No, if God is worth our attention at all, He must be a God we can look up to – a God we must look up to…” (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, p63)
          When I discuss God with Atheists and Agnostics, I often hear that they would believe in Him if He would manifest Himself. I’ve been told that under those conditions, they would never doubt again. When I ask what form this manifestation would need to take, more often than not, the answer has both a positive and a negative component. It is a manifestation that could not be dismissed as a natural phenomenon, but it is also something silly, a fifty-foot tall Charlton Heston, for example. 
          In some cases, they recognize their challenge is meant to ridicule. In others, they believe that this one extravagant gesture on God’s part would solve the problem forever. Of course, it would not. The Israelites turned to idols while God was thundering on Mt. Sinai, in plain view of all. They turned against God, Moses, and Aaron repeatedly, though God showed both judgment and mercy. 
          The problem is that something that wows and then goes away is easily dismissed. Consider the resurrection. God did step into history and did something spectacular, and the very people who say, “If God would just manifest himself” reject it. They would likewise reject a fifty-foot tall Charlton Heston as a delusion, a daydream, a trick for which there is a technological answer if only we look hard enough. No, God would have to re-prove Himself with every increasing frequency and inventive frivolity. He would have to become a performing circus poodle, and that would lose our respect. We would no longer look at God with respect. He would be a shmoo version of Jim Carrey, there to give us everything we want and to entertain us, too. 
          The only god worth having is a God who does not obey us, a God we can look up to – a God we must look up to.


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