What version of God have you conjured up in your mind?  Version you ask?  Isn’t there just one version of God?  In my church, for instance, we all come to the same place for worship, read from the same Bible, but when I sit with many, the picture of the God they serve is totally different than the God I serve.  What does your God look or seem like to you?  This spring I watched a movie called, “The Shack,” based on the book.  This movie was so unexpectedly emotional and enlightening that I could not help but watch it again and soak in the way the author and director depicted a man’s relationship with God.  

(Spoiler alert if you have not seen the movie.)

Mackenzie (Mack for short) lost someone dear to him; causing Mack to be stuck in his faith.  God gave him a personal invitation to spend some time with Him in a shack away from everything, and the dialogue was astounding.  The questions Mack had for God was harsh, direct, truthful but ever so real.  He asked God the very questions many of us ask about Him when the unthinkable happens. 

So for August and October, we will be talking about the topics, questions and hurts we go through when God does not act the way we feel God should.  His lack of action or His uncaring attitude towards us, when we are so vulnerable, leaves us to ask if He really knows what He’s doing. Does God really love us and should we trust such an untrustworthy God?  

All Present Abandoner

I was not too naïve to understand the omnipresence of God at the age of eight.  As I sat on the hard plastic Sunday School chair listening to one of the sisters in my church teach about the ever-present God I found myself confused and struggling with anger towards this invisible being.  “If God is everywhere then why was He watching me go through my pain and doing nothing about it,” I thought.  The idea that God was watching my father take out that thick brown leather belt to beat me senseless, or that He watched as my molester violated me over and over again, was hard to swallow.  What exactly was God doing while all of this was taking place?  

He was an “ever-present abandoner” in the time of trouble; I rationalized in my mind.  In the movie and book “The Shack,” Mack has taken up the invitation to meet whoever invited him to the shack.  He didn’t think it was actually God, but he knew he was dying inside as questions of his loved ones death burned him.  Mack decided to go just for answers.  After settling in, Mack’s bitterness and mistrust towards God surfaces.  God the Father is reassuring Mack that He loves him as well as the loved one that he lost so brutally.   In his frustration, Mack quotes the words of Jesus as he was dying on the cross, “Father, Father why have thou forsaken me?”  He lets God the Father know that he has the reputation of abandoning those that He loves and who need Him the most.   

Where does one go when one feels totally abandoned by the those who are supposed to protect them?  Many have a view of God, as I did, as one who forsakes you when you need Him the most so why even trust Him in the first place?   Why place your everything in a God who failed you?  What happens when a time comes where you are so desperate, and all He does is leave you once again…or does he?

A Powerful God Who Won’t Protect

Blow after blow I dreaded to think what the next day would bring.  I worried about when my molester would come demanding another “session.”  Why did God allow this to happen to me?    I needed protection; what did you want from God in your time of need and vulnerability? 

Mack is a man who not only was mourning the loss of a family member, he was mourning and angry at the thought of a God that cannot protect.  As a child, he too was the victim of abuse.  It wasn’t until he took matters into his own hands that he was free of the chains of violence, but he wasn’t so lucky when it came to the loss of his loved one.  About a year passed for Mack and his family, God invites him for the alone time.  Though time had passed, Mack still is tormented by the loss.  The question arises at one point in the story of “How can we serve a God who has all the power in the world but won’t use it when the weak are exploited, and the young are robbed of their youth?”  What is in God’s power anyway?  

We read of a God that opens the sea for millions of people, and we have a God that uses a little boy to strike down a 9-foot tall giant, let’s not forget that God shut mouths of the lions when one of his prophets were thrown into the lion’s den.  So has God’s power decreased, or are those just fairytales to dazzle children in Sunday School?    

A God Too Angry to Love

One of the mysteries of the God we read about in the Bible is that we see God’s love, but his anger overshadows it.  How can hurting people find safety in a God that always seems so angry?  He punishes, He destroys, His wrath consumes those not on His side.  How do we know when we are living in his good graces?  This thought can almost be interpreted as an abusive relationship.  What kind of comfort can I rest in when my God never seems to be stable?  

When I was only eight years old, my Sunday School teacher told our class about Hell.  In this opposite universe from Heaven, those that rejected God and wanted to live life their own way, were cast in this abyss with this new villain, Satan.  He was an outcast himself because he wouldn’t follow the rules and those who wanted to follow in his footsteps, received the same reward.  In this dungeon, Satan ruled.  I learned that he hates us and would do anything to get us to come down and join him. 

I don’t know about others, but I remember when my Sunday School teacher talked about hell it gave me comfort.  You see if I was not good enough for God—which I know I wasn’t—then I would definitely be bad enough for this Satan guy.  Satan was easy to please.  I never had to question my status with him.  I never lost my place with him, and I was always hated; wherewith God it seemed like I was conditionally loved.  I felt like I could never honestly keep God happy but I knew I could easily please Satan so to heck with trying to serve a God that had a standard far greater than I could ever reach.  

Like how I viewed my biological father, I saw that God’s love was met with punishment, hate, and destruction, so I thought.  I would rather be in the arms of Satan, even though the consequences were riddled with pain and hurt; at least I knew what I was getting no matter what. 

Religion Ruins God

Can you relate to any of my previous hurts and pains?  Maybe you’ve shared in some of my own views.  Well, let’s face some truths and address some of the fallacies that religion causes.  Many times we mistake religion for relationship.  A wise man once said that religion works from outside in, but relationship works from inside out.  So let’s drop the religiosity and come to God with our hurtful ideas of Him so that He can fix and readjust our false views.

Christianity is the only faith where we question our God.  There is no other religion that I’m aware of where the god says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” All the other faiths condemn you when you don’t trust their ways; trust that their god will taste good.  Understand this, God is not afraid of our misunderstandings, anger, disappointments or our struggle with believing Him.  The circumstances of life may have left us battered and bruised, but it is only God’s patience, and love that helps us to come back and become stronger.

In, “The Shack,” one of the lines I loved was, “Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationships.”  When I started this journey, I realized it was going to take time, and I was going to get bruised climbing the mountain, but as I got closer I realized my God never left me when I was experiencing this abuse.  It was His presence that kept me strong during the times of pain.  The more I climbed I realized that God’s power was more than just about stopping my father from abusing me, it was about crafting me and using the thing that was meant to destroy me into someone stronger.  I never thought that strength could come from weakness, yet that’s the kind of God we serve, and I must accept that.  This world has made its choice not to submit and follow God, and as such evil, hate and harm will exist. God, however, will not leave His children to fend for themselves.  Just as He was there when Jesus took the lashings, He was there with me as I was beaten.  Just as God was there when they mocked His Son, God was there when I was told I would never amount to anything.  In the same way, God was there when Jesus conquered death and the grave; He was there when my wounds became weapons for His Kingdom.

My journey allowed me to let go of my thoughts of how God should use his powers.  Even through moments of horror and pain, there is a plan to create in each of us a weapon and warrior for the Kingdom.  Learning how to trust God when you don’t see a reason to, may not always come easy.   You may still have your opinions of how God should handle certain situations; however, we must learn that our point of view is limited in the scope of life and scripture teaches us we must abandon our own thoughts and learn to trust the God who sees and knows all.    

I pray that you will come back for the month of August as we look into this book. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Please follow us on facebook and Instagram @throughthewinters.  If you are in need of additional help please feel free to email us at throuthewinter@gmail.com.