Foundations III: How Does God View Us? How Do We View God?

In this guided meditation, we continue to explore our foundations for parts-work and spiritual formation. We will slow down and consider how we view God's posture and presence toward the depths of our soul. We'll explore how God makes Himself known in Scripture, and whether or not our view of Him lines up with this. To complete the foundations series, follow this track with Foundations IV: How Do We View People?

Transcript

We're going to spend this session slowing down and considering how we view God and how this does or does not line up with how he reveals himself in scripture.

We're going to do this because there are so many things that shape our perspectives and beliefs and oftentimes beneath our awareness we hold assumptions and beliefs that shape our view of God that really are not from him.

This could be the influence of things that people have said to us or taught us.

It could be how we have seen people live their lives in our families or church communities.

It could be from a book we've read or a mentor we've had.

It's important to pause and consider if our view of God is consistent with how scripture reveals him to be so that we can parse through assumptions or beliefs that might be distorting our view of him in an unhelpful or even harmful way.

Ways that can create barriers in our relationship with him.

So this is especially important when connecting with the depths of our soul because it's extremely common for different facets of us to hold a different perspective.

And this is one of the most fascinating and helpful things about parts work.

It helps us locate with clarity which part of us where in the depths of our soul we might be holding a certain belief or pain that is shaping our view of God,

Ourselves,

Or the world around us and how that's impacting the formation of our souls more holistically.

To start today,

I invite you to take a nice deep breath.

Let your body settle in where you're sitting or laying down.

And as you start to lengthen your inhales and exhales,

I'm going to say a brief prayer to open this time.

Lord God,

You are steadfast and true even when our understanding of you is not.

Your glory and goodness are mysteriously available to us and at the same time are far greater than anything we could fully comprehend.

I pray that you would help us to see who you are,

Not as we would have you,

But as you truly are.

I ask that you would make us aware of any ways that our view of you has become distorted.

Would you give us a clear picture of your goodness,

Your mercy,

Your grace?

Would you make the truth of who you are seep into the depths of our souls in ways that we cannot do for ourselves?

Pour out your mercy on the parts of us that have felt wounded or abandoned in our relationship with you.

Any part of us that is angry with you or unsure of how to trust you.

Help all these facets of our soul to see your mercy,

Embrace your mercy,

And embody your mercy.

Amen.

Continuing some nice deep breaths,

Closing your eyes if you're comfortable,

I invite you to think about how you imagine God's view of you and God's view of the depths of your soul.

You can take a few moments to let visual imagery naturally come to mind.

Again,

Thinking about how you view your soul,

The facets of yourself that are embedded in the depths of your soul,

And where God is in relation to these parts of you.

And without responding in judgment or shame towards yourself,

Let yourself consider where is God in relation to the facets of yourself that you have started to notice?

Is he near?

Is he distant?

Do you see communion between him and any part of your soul?

Are there spaces where you see a bit of a disconnect or even what seems to be a complete disconnect?

And taking a nice deep breath,

You can notice if there's any internal reaction of judgment or shame towards yourself.

And if so,

I invite you to ask God to remove or carry this for you.

You can ask him to hold that judgment or shame in his hands,

Taking it from you,

Exhaling as you imagine releasing it.

You can repeat this as many times as you need to in this session or in the rest of the series.

And for the next few moments,

I invite you to specifically notice how you imagine God's posture toward you and how you imagine his presence with you.

Whatever might be coming to mind,

You can consider how this compares to how God makes himself known in scripture.

Let your mind notice how you envision God as we spend a couple of minutes with how God makes himself known in Exodus in particular.

This is a foundational experience for God's people and a book that is interwoven with the rest of scripture.

Exodus opens up with intentional words and phrases that bring Genesis to mind.

And this continues throughout the entire book.

And words,

Phrases,

And stories from Exodus reverberate throughout the rest of the Old Testament and swarm in the New Testament as well.

God's people know themselves after the Exodus as God's people who he brought out of Egypt.

In the prophets,

As God's people are stuck in exile,

Feeling hopeless and abandoned by God,

God speaks tenderly to them,

Promising a new Exodus out of exile,

An Exodus out of the root problem that they cannot fix on their own.

Hearts that wander and are unable to steadfastly love the Lord their God who brought them up out of Egypt.

And it's in this Exodus story that we see a famous example of this human unfaithfulness.

As Moses is on Mount Sinai and God is leading him in a beautiful covenant ceremony,

Bringing these people to be his own,

God's people get bored at the bottom of the mountain and restless and make a golden calf to worship instead.

They completely go back on their word to be faithful and follow God's instruction.

Moses pleads with God after this and we're told that when Moses would speak with God in the tent of meeting,

He would speak with God face to face like a person would speak with a friend.

And this word face stands out in our English translations.

But what's fascinating is that in the Hebrew,

The word for face is the same word that we translate as presence.

So as God talks about his presence being with and going with his people in Exodus,

The most literal translation of this is that his face is with them.

And let's pause and think about for a moment how beautiful of a picture this is.

In a world where families,

Parents and friends are often too consumed with a screen or their next task to offer a true attunement with their loved ones or the full presence of their face with them,

We have a picture of our God whose presence is his face with his people.

I've heard Hebrew scholars suggest a helpful translation of this rather than simply face or presence would be to read this as God's face presence.

And while this isn't the smoothest English translation,

I love the picture that it paints.

And it's also in Exodus after the golden calf that God passes before Moses proclaiming his name.

This comes after Moses has pleaded with God for his face to still go with them into the promised land.

And what's interesting about God proclaiming his name here as he passes before Moses is that the Hebrew name of the book of Exodus is actually the book of names.

And in this book of names,

It's intentional that Pharaoh's name,

A man who considered himself God and king,

Isn't named once.

But God's name is made known throughout the entire narrative and specifically in this pinnacle of Exodus 34 where he passes before Moses.

And in this ancient culture,

Your name was more than a title or a reference.

It had to do with your character.

It had to do with who you were.

So for God to proclaim his name before Moses,

To pass before him,

Is for God to make himself known.

It's here that we have the famous words that God is merciful and gracious.

He's patient in regard to anger,

Abounding in loyal love and faithfulness.

We're going to look at each of these briefly.

As we do so,

I invite you to let your mind be visually creative,

Imagining God's posture and presence,

His face,

As his character embodies these qualities.

As God says that he is merciful and gracious,

This first word merciful that we sometimes translate as compassionate,

It comes from a Hebrew root that has to do with compassion,

Mercy,

And love.

And the root noun of this actually means womb.

This tender care of mercy or compassion,

It's best understood in the embodied expression of tender maternal care.

And this word alongside the next word gracious are two foundational components of statements about God all throughout scripture.

He's compassionate and gracious,

Merciful and gracious.

As God next says that he's patient in regard to anger or slow to anger,

This is another place I love to nerd out on the Hebrew where it actually says he is long as to the nostrils.

Nostrils knows that has a double meaning in Hebrew.

It's the same word for anger.

So to say that God is long as to the nostrils paints a picture of his presence.

It's almost like the opposite of saying someone has a short fuse.

And despite how foundational this is to who God is,

The picture of God's patience like this is not always assumed or embraced in our faith communities.

I love that we're given this picture all the way back in Exodus.

This tells us that God is revealed in the Old Testament is not purely or quickly angry in a way that's shielded or different in Christ when Christ comes.

But even prior to Christ's coming,

God is revealed and known for his slowness to anger,

His lengthy patience.

We're next told that he's abounding in loyal love and faithfulness.

The first of these words is just bursting with meaning.

It's so hard to express it in English.

It's often translated as loving kindness or steadfast love.

It has rich and deep relational dimensions to it.

It's often thought of as God's covenant love.

And pairing this word with faithfulness really emphasizes the fidelity,

The reliability of God's loyal love and relational love.

These words continue lavishly saying that he maintains this loyal love for thousands and that he carries or forgives iniquity,

Transgression,

And sin.

And these three words here are significant because we often use just one word to describe the problem that separates us from God.

We normally just use the word sin.

And in contrast with how we normally just use one word to describe this or talk about this,

Scripture uses a much wider vocabulary to talk about and describe human brokenness.

It goes beyond what one word alone can depict.

And these three distinct Hebrew words here that are translated as iniquity,

Transgression,

And sin,

They're used frequently throughout the Old Testament.

They're in the New Testament as well and Greek translations of the Old Testament.

And more than this,

We see so many other terms,

Word pictures,

Poetry just saturate scripture to paint a fuller picture of human brokenness.

And this is so important because it helps us see that our theology is problematic if we stop in understanding the problem of human brokenness with just one word,

When there are so many words in scripture to describe a more complex issue of human brokenness.

And to deepen our understanding of just how much we are not right with God on our own,

This only magnifies just how committed God is to making things right because he is merciful,

Gracious,

Patient in regard to anger and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness.

I love pausing here and considering what is the picture of God painted here?

And how connected or disconnected do these words feel from your soul?

I wonder if these words describe God feel comforting to any part of you.

If there are any depths of your soul that are having a hard time with these words,

Feeling like they're far off from a grief or pain that you're carrying.

Love to return to the question,

How do you see God's posture and presence,

His face?

How do these words that reveal who God is shift the picture you see in your mind?

When you think about the depths of your soul,

The state of your soul and where God is in relation to you,

How he is postured toward you.

How do you think different facets of you,

The depths of you view God?

And have there been shifts internally,

Even maybe just a shift to the possibility of God's presence and face being different from what has been previously thought or believed by certain parts of you.

It's really important here to note that we are not looking for the right Sunday school answers here.

We're looking for the raw and real answers that God already knows.

He knows where we are and he's with us where we are.

And if any part of us is longing for deeper communion with him,

Even if there are other parts of us that are currently hesitant or unsure about this,

We can't make authentic movement toward him or embrace his movement toward us if we're not first honest about our starting point.

And so while this might feel a bit painful or uncomfortable or slow initially,

It has a very intentional purpose for the rest of this process.

As we close today,

I invite you to join me in this prayer.

Lord God,

Help us to see your face,

Your tender mercy and compassion that is more pure than anything we can muster up ourselves or experience in another human.

Help us see your loyal love and faithfulness that is more steadfast than we can comprehend.

Would you bring a rest to our souls that is only found in you?

The most solid and sturdy security we could ever know.

Remove any sense of shame or judgment we might throw on ourselves as we parse through the state of our soul.

Remind us that your grace covers us and is deeper than we could ever know or need.

Help us remember that your grace is a free gift and a response to our need for you.

Amen.