The God Who Is?

Or the God I want?

Because, I'm going to be honest, they're not always the same.

I remember the first time that struggle became clear to me.  At some level, I had been aware of it before, but never had the lines been so plainly drawn.  I was sitting in the back of a Bible college class, and I listened to these startling words:

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please."

-- Wilbur Reese

For the first time, I was really confronted with my $3 God, my $3 faith.  I had to choose between the God I want, and the God who is.  The God-I-want will do all he can to make me comfortable.  The God-who-is asks me to do things that are uncomfortable.   The God-I-want is gentle, benign, indulgent, safe.  The God-who-is, is wild, uncontainable, uncompromising, uncontrollable -- frightening, at times.  The God-I-want always wants me to be happy.  The God-who-is has limits and boundaries and expectations that sometimes make me feel bad.  The God-I-want would never let me be hurt.  The God-who-is will allow me to suffer evil in order to bring about his greater good. 

I like the God-I-want.  I like the thought that there is this benevolent being up there whose only purpose is to make my life happy and comfortable.  A cup of warm milk.  A snooze in the sunshine.  The warmth of the womb.  I like the thrill I get from standing and singing in church -- ecstasy!  I like the idea that all I have to do is pray and he will open up parking spots for me, mysteriously direct me to the greatest shoe sale in the mall (even though I can't really afford even the sale price), and make sure that the cake I'm baking for the church potluck rises nicely.  It's kind of like having my own personal genie in a bottle.

Except that's not who God is.

And the God-who-is explodes my heart and soul and leaves them in shambles.  When I catch the slightest glimpse of who he really is, I am driven to my knees, not in ecstasy but by an awareness of the weight of his glory.  With Isaiah, I cry out, "Woe is me, for I am a person of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips."  He is mysterious and unpredictable.   Sometimes he provides for my material needs, but sometimes he lets me suffer want in order to learn patience and trust.  Sometimes he helps me to overcome a great difficulty even if I forget to ask for help, but sometimes he lets me muddle through so that I am reminded afresh just how small I am and how desperately I depend on him.  Sometimes he rescues me, but sometimes he sits in the trouble with me to show me that he truly is enough.  No genie in a bottle, this God-who-is.  He is a whirlwind, and I am a speck of dust.  He is a forest fire, and I am a dry leaf.

I don't always like this God-who-is.

But when I am honest with myself, I know that I could never devote my life to a $3-God.  A God who makes it his mission to keep me happy is no bigger than what is inside my own skin.  A pound of the eternal in a paper sack is the size of my imagination, and that's a petty object of worship indeed.  But the God-who-is?  The God who explodes my soul?  This God says to me, "Your greatest joy is found not in my glorifying you, but in you glorifying me."

So I throw out my $3 God and I allow my soul to explode.  I give up my illusions of safety with the God-I-want, and I enter the great unknown with the God-who-is.   I embrace the whirlwind.  I am consumed by the forest fire.

And I discover that the God-who-is is the God I want.
The God I need.
The only God I could love.