Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: How Does Our Image of God Affect Us?

How do you imagine God to be? And how does that image impact your behavior and actions as you practice your faith daily?

Blogger Melissa Campbell talks about seeing the Lincoln Memorial as a youngster and seeing God in the same way as Abraham Lincoln, giant and sitting upon a throne. Campbell says she needs a "big God" when she yearns for control in the chaos. Campbell adds:

"Our view of God and his relationship with us, especially how he deals with us when we stumble and fail, is critical to us growing in our faith. If we don’t have an accurate view of God or how He sees us, then it will keep us from coming to Him. The way we follow Jesus, how we read the Bible, how we live out our faith, how we see ourselves, all revolve around and are influenced by how we see God."

Dennis, Sheila, and Matthew Linn assert in their book, "Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God," that our view of God determines how we view the world and make choices in it. For example, they write if we believe in a vengeful, punishing God who decides our eternal fate depending on our merits, we are more likely to favor an economic system based on merit. But if we believe in a loving God who gives free gifts to unrepentant sinners solely because they need it, we're more likely to choose an economic system based on need. The same images may determine our view of capital punishment.

Political policies aside, research reinforces the idea that our actions are impacted by our view of God. A study by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis examined religious celibates to determine which are the most and least caring. Those who exhibited the most caring actions were four times more likely to imagine God as caring.

Similarly, Andrew Greeley's study determined that couples who imagine God as a lover of souls are more likely to enjoy a wholesome, loving marriage with a fulfilling sex life.

Our image of God can be more complex than big, harsh, or loving - I realize mine is. I also don't feel like we consciously consider our images of God very often, yet we are motivated by such images every day.

A good exercise for myself and others is to contemplate the following:

1. What IS my image of God? It is a single image or multi-faceted? Which parts of that image are appealing to me, and which parts raise fear in me? Where did I get this image of God?

2. How do my actions align with that image? How do I act the same as the God that I worship and adore? How do I act differently?

3. Where do I want to go from here? Should I change my actions to align better with my image of God? Should I update my image of God based on what I find in scripture and based on what actions scripture commands me to take?

It's not surprising that we can have multiple or even conflicting images of God. Scripture shows me a multi-faceted God who is gradually revealed in fullness the deeper we read in the Bible. But with reading and with prayer for insight, we can better understand our Lord and follow God's will in our daily faith journey.

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