What My God is Not

Are you someone who is gifted and disciplined at self reflection?  Someone who regularly takes the time to quiet the world around them and focus in on who they are at a deep, central level?  

If I am honest, I am not stellar at this.  In fact, I am quite terrible.  Why?  I hate it.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to think about me.  I do it all day, every day.  I like to live within a universe where everything and everyone revolves around me.  I like to think that my heart, my intellect, and my way of doing things are quite superior.  When I sit down and reflect on the selfish desires my heart innately pursues, how limited my knowledge really is, and how my way to put together that “E-Z to assemble” child’s toy fails, I have to admit all the things that I am not.

Now this might be where the world would try to validate me.  Some friends with deeply heartfelt intentions might say, “You’re still a good person.”  They would list horrible crimes that I have not committed, downplay the mistakes I have made and tell me that I am still “better than average.”

Here is just part of the problem.  First, they don’t know all of the things that I have thought or done because no human can ever know another person that deeply.  Therefore, they are only privileged to the filtered things I say and do.  Secondly, as much as I care for them, I know them too well to think they have the authority or ability to make these moral judgments for all humanity.  Third, is “better than most” supposed to be good enough?!

As much I as I really, really don’t like to be reminded of what I am on my own, this allows me to appreciate what I so desperately want and need.  Contrary to what many may believe, seeing myself as flawed is not depressing.  When my eyes are opened to who I am, only then am I able to see the beauty and depth of God’s love and grace for me and the desperate way I need him.

When I see what I am not, I see what my God is not.

I am not inherently selfless.  My God is not inherently selfish.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

I do not have the most brilliant mind.  My God is not limited by a human mind.
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
1 Colossians 1:16

I am not the most beautiful.  My God is not flawed in anyway.
From Zion, in perfect beauty, God shines forth.
Psalm 50:2

I do not have a pure and blameless heart.  My God is not changed by the darkness he sees in my heart.
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:20

I LOVE that we have a God who sees what we are, what we are not and loves us immeasurably despite who he is and who he is not.

Lord,

I pray that our eyes would be opened to who we are in relation to who you are.  I ask that we would never be so blind to our brokenness that we would miss what it is like to be reconciled to the beauty and purpose we are able to have in you.

Amen

~ Ashley Van Dam