Today (at Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 3 November 2009) my Spiritual Director invited me to consider who God is for me. Here’s what I scribbled:

At the outset, as I approach this awesome subject, I need to assert again my deep ignorance, and take the shoes of arrogance from my feet.

First, God is. I have never seriously doubted God’s existence, encountering God in the lives and commitment of the ‘saints’ in our childhood church, later in the ‘works of God’s hands’ in nature, and ultimately/most importantly – until today – in Jesus, Lover and Lord… This God is not far from any one of us: in God we live and move and have our being.

God is Being, the life in all living things, and infinite (centre everywhere, circumference nowhere). Our feeble attempts at understanding describe God as enlivener, enlightener and empowerer of all creatures: God is Creator, God is Truth, God is with us. Christian ‘Spirituality’ is about nothing else.

I also believe God is personal – father/mother/friend. I know the biblical writers used anthropomorphic language in their struggle to depict who God is, but the clear message throughout is that God desires a relationship with me, a relationship, astonishingly, with reciprocal dimensions. This is what’s behind the beautiful Hebrew idea of hesed, which is almost untranslatable into English, but ‘covenant love’ or, better, ‘lovingkindness’ will do for now. (And I will use masculine pronouns for God, if only to remind me that he is for me the ‘Father’ I never had…)

God chose to reveal his ‘nature’ and ‘purposes’ to/for us via some ancient sages, poets and prophets, but ultimately in Jesus of Nazareth. So what is this God like? He is ‘Grace’ (justice-love) and ‘Truth’.

God calls each of us to a special vocation: to serve others in whatever unique ways for which we are destined and equipped. First, our calling is to know him (the main means: prayer) and out of that to communicate his grace and truth. Both prayer and service to others are best done with deeds (plus words if necessary). Occasionally (this is a great mystery for humans) we are equipped to pray and serve better through suffering: being with Jesus ‘outside the camp/ the city walls’ (ie. our social group’s sometimes unhelpful or evil distractions and expectations). It is even good to be thus afflicted, so that we can better learn God’s decrees (Psalm 119:7).

Again: who is the God to whom we pray and whom we serve? God is grace (loving us unconditionally before, as, and after we change, and whether we change or not). And God is holy (beyond any blame, and who gives us truth/laws to that we might better journey towards blamelessness). Love and law are complimentary, as a train is to the railway tracks: all the propulsive power is in the train, but the tracks give direction. Without the tracks our imperfect ideas of ‘loving’ can be selfish or even chaotic; without a train, tracks are sterile – pointing to a destination but powerless to help us get there. People who are preoccupied with the tracks are called legalists or dogmatists: Jesus got very angry with such people.

Rowland Croucher

http://rowlandcroucher.blogspot.com/2009/11/35-ideas.html

Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.org.au/

Justice for Dawn Rowan – http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/