Banishing the Flyswatter!

                For a significant part of my life, I’ve been afraid of God. This is another thing you don’t say, especially if you’ve grown up in the church. Nevertheless, now I’ve said it, and in my defense, I will also say that I had good reason to be afraid of God.

                The Old Testament is full of stories of a powerful God who is sometimes angry.
Evil people were washed away, wiped out in battle, killed instantly. I was an evil person because everyone is wicked. God saw every bad thing I did and recorded every sinful thought that played in my mind. So I feared the condemnation of a holy God.  I felt he would punish at any moment, the way a person with a flyswatter waits for the perfect second to zap a buzzing pest. Add to that thunderous sermons from fire-and-brimstone preachers and long altar calls for wayward sinners to repent, and you have one terrified girl. When I was baptized, I made three promises.  I only remember one, the scary one:  to renounce Satan and all his ways!

                As the years rolled by I kept a respectful distance from God, even as a Christian—fear does that.  But all during that time, and even since then, I couldn’t get enough of Jesus. I just loved him. He was so kind to people who were sick, hurting, blind, hungry, bleeding, sorrowing. The only people he was exasperated with were the thick-headed Pharisees who refused to see what was right in front of them. Jesus always knew what questions to ask to draw people out, what rebuke to give to make someone sit up and pay attention. He was enormously patient with dense disciples.

Jesus told stories so people who truly wanted to know him would understand, and they would not understand if they were being pigheaded. As I’d read the New Testament I’d put myself in the scenes and imagine myself watching Jesus interact with people. I desperately wanted to look into his eyes. I just knew he was fantastic! I wanted to sit down beside him and eat lunch; I wanted to hear everything he had to say.

How could Jesus be so wonderful and God be so terrifying? Was it like good cop-bad cop? How could God and Jesus act like that? No, there was still something I didn’t get.

Then one spectacular day I got it—or maybe I should say Hebrews 1:3 got me. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and exact representation of his being.” (NIV) What? You mean everything that I love about Jesus is what God is like? You mean I could stop being afraid of a God with a flyswatter? Yes, yes, yes! Because everything I love and everything about Jesus Christ that there is to love is also what God is like. Since then, God and I have a much closer relationship. Guess who moved?

That’s enough to make me want to dance. How about you?