Images of God--Teaching and Exploring

"When you were younger, how did you picture God? Do you imagine God in the same way today?"

Every once in a while, a teacher stumbles upon a question that is curiously repeatable. I have now asked my youth group variations on the above set of questions on three separate occasions. New people were present each time I asked, and I was primarily interested in hearing their responses, but several of those who had already shared their picture of God were eager to do it again, and a few even came up with some different answers.

Once you move beyond the non-committal "guy in a white robe" answer, most people will at least share some insightful details like "with fire in his eyes," or "like a father, but not angry like mine." Some answers are abstract, but even these are full of emotion: a big, pink, fuzzy ball; golden light surrounding the entire earth with an embrace.

Of course, none of these pictures can give us a complete understanding of God, but as we share these personalized images with one another, we are blessed with an ever-widening vision of our multi-faceted Creator. Some may resist the question, claiming that God is too complex for such crude portrayals as human minds are capable of imagining, but the alternative is to imagine nothing, and it is hard to understand how a nothing could love the world and be a living, active presence within it. Dig deep enough, and all of us imagine God as something or several somethings, regardless of our efforts to avoid putting God in a box.

When  individuals make the claim, "God is...", they flirt with idolatry, but when members of a community dialogue and say, "God is like...", they practice theology. Not only can these discussions provide individuals with new insights into the nature of God, they are also a good way to introduce a group to self-disclosure in a non-threatening way. Even though these intimate portraits of God are rarely discussed, most people are quick to share them with a group when prompted, and the group learns something about both the nature of God and the personality of the individual. If people don't readily respond to the question, "How do you imagine God?" they may open up to the question, "How did you picture God when you were a kid?" As some people age, their images of God seem to shift toward vagueness and abstraction, but the second question allows them to draw on earlier experiences when God was more concrete. For those who still fear idolatry, the second question leaves room for qualifications: Well, I used to imagine God as a _____, but now I know that God is also _____."

I hope that this post might inspire you to ask your bible class, children, small group, circle of friends, or significant other how they imagine God.

If you would like to share your picture(s) of God with me, please comment on this post.