Seeing God Personally
Is God an abstract concept? How can we understand God concretely? And how do we know that God cares about us in today's modern age?
Growing up in a predominantly Christian country, my earliest images of God were of a higher power that was to be taken very seriously often laced with images of fear of eternal damnation. This version of God is highly offensive to people. No one wants to be scared into being a good person. But how are we to understand God, who is at once both sacred and personal, especially when we do not feel God’s presence? How do we find a personal connection with a God who sometimes feel inaccessible, distant, or even uncaring and disengaged in our everyday life?
Seeing God in Jesus
When Jesus was preparing His followers for his imminent death, they were anxious. Jesus comforted them by sharing more about God:
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?1
Jesus was trying to share two truths about God. First, that Jesus was God and second, that God was Jesus’s father. The followers were still confused. Who was this Father that Jesus was talking about? His followers still did not fully understand this relationship. Jesus explained more:
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father…The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.2
Jesus was saying something profound: everything He did represented God. When Jesus rose in anger at the injustice of organized religion taking advantage of poor people, He was representing God’s heart for justice. When Jesus stood up against greed, He was inviting us to experience God’s generosity. When Jesus had compassion on the hungry or the sick, He was showing us that God deeply cares about the marginalized in society and those who are hurting. Jesus showed us that God is very engaged in human affairs. Most importantly, Jesus was extending an invitation to everyone to embrace God’s love.
Embracing God’s Love
Even with this invitation, there are lots of times and situations in life that might cause us to wonder if God exists, and if God exists, whether He loves us. Jesus’s followers felt afraid. Jesus was reassuring them they were not alone. Through Jesus, we understand that God has always loved us and continues to love us even today. The Hebrews writer explains:
Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!3
God has been speaking to humanity for a long time. When Jesus came on earth, He was representing God. Jesus came to share important truths, inviting the world into a personal relationship with His father, who is a loving God. We know this because Jesus was intensely personal with His followers. As Jesus was talking to them, He wanted them to know He would always be with them. Instead of being an abstract concept, God, through Jesus, was being as personal as it gets.
Why does any of this matter? When things go sideways or when we face disappointment, we can feel alone and abandoned. We can feel like no one in the world cares about us. We sometimes imagine that God either does not care about us or does not understand what we are going through. But in looking at the life of Jesus, who was tempted in every way, enduring terrible injustice and incredible suffering, we see that God cares about us and understands what we are going through. Jesus faced dark times. He felt abandoned. He suffered deeply. Yet it is precisely because Jesus went through these experiences that we can confidently call on God knowing that He sees us, understands us, and loves us deeply.
That is what Jesus’s life and mission were all about. Jesus came to bring us into a thriving, vibrant relationship with a living, caring, just and personal God who continues to love us even in a busy and modern world.
John 14:1-2
John 14:10-11
Hebrews 1:1-3