I Need A God Who ....

What kind of a God do you need? Sure, we all want One who makes us healthy, wealthy and wise (along with all the people we care about). We imagine One who gives us exemption from all the ordinary problems of life and logical answers to all of our questions.  Some churches actually that market that kind of God and attract quite a crowd by offering an escape from reality.

Personally, I want a God who is with me in all the darkness that life throws my way. One who is there as a “present help in times of trouble.” Not one I have to call to come from where ever He (They) is/are to where I am. Isn’t that Jesus said the Holy Spirit would be another Advocate with us forever (John 14:16, 17)? Yet, how often have I prayed in my darkness “God, where are you? It’s time for you to show up.” – as if He was not present.

That misses the whole meaning of the Incarnation – God with us – Emmanuel – lowering Himself to become like us forever (the enfleshment of Christ was not a temporary condition that he could discard like a dirty suit when He ascended. He still sits inside our same skin.)

Here is a description of the God I need – and the One we all have:

Any gift Christ has for me depends on this, that he became poor. I need a God to heal the trouble of my life, but a God remote, inapprehensible, is no God for the heart. He may have all the fulness of strength and wisdom and love, but if these cannot display themselves they might as well have no existence. Wisdom does not sit apart from life, but proves itself wisdom by entering into affairs and guiding them to worthy issues. And love, also, is no abstraction; it shows itself in loving, entering into conditions which are foreign to it in order to prove its quality. It takes upon itself burdens which are not its own, it throws aside every privilege and restriction, and plunges into the thick of common life. All that is in God could not be known without an incarnation.

When I look into the face of Jesus Christ and see the face of God, I know that I have not seen that face elsewhere and could not see it elsehow, for he and the Father are one. Person of Jesus Christ by H. R. Mackintosh,T. F. Torrance T&T Clarke Publishers, 2000

Wish I had said that!