Think of God as ‘Abba’
A friend of mine once said that if you think about God too much you go crazy. (He also believed if you licked the back of a frog, it was like taking LSD.)
He had a lot of ideas and didn’t mind sharing them.
Still–I don’t think it’s how MUCH you think about God that makes you crazy but rather, HOW you think about him. Some beliefs going around about God can certainly alienate you from your fellow-humans. For instance:
- God is all-powerful.
- God is mean.
- God is American.
- God is Jewish.
- God is Arab.
- God is rock and roll.
Each one of those particular incarnations of the Almighty has its own personality, style and demeanor.
I have concluded that of all the choices available, thinking of Him (or Her) as a Father is pretty good–that is, if you mean father as in the dad we all wish we had instead of the substitute-teacher-figure who ended up in our homeroom in the eighth grade.
So if God is a dad, who would he be?
My choice would be Harrison Ford when he played the President in Air Force One.
If you don’t remember the movie, even though the plane is hijacked by Russian subversives with really bad accents, Harrison, as the President, decides to stay onboard, fight them and save his family. He does a whole bunch of brave stuff that you know he would not really be able to do, but believing he was willing adds a lot of fun to the story.
Yeah, God could be Harrison Ford.
Note: I don’t know if it would be advantageous to me to think of God as my ACTUAL dad. I mean, I don’t have anything against him. He was a small, German man who normally didn’t say more than six things during the week and five of those were explanations on why he wasn’t talking. No, I couldn’t really tolerate a silent God. I’d always be wondering why He stopped speaking to me.
I kind of like the idea of God fighting for me.
I kind of like the idea of God being that kind of Father.
Of course, according to my friend’s philosophy, I’ve already talked enough about God to earn a 72-hour hold at Bellevue.
So remember–it’s not about how MUCH you think about God.
It’s about how you think of Him.
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