Geo MacDonald: God Is Not Angry with You

In one of his novels, George MacDonald has young Robert saying the following to his grandmother (who had been raised with a view of God as an angry God requiring punishment to turn away His wrath toward humans):

"It's more for our sakes than His own that God cares about his glory. I don't believe that he thinks about his glory except for the sake of truth and men's hearts dying for lack of it...

"God's not like a proud man to take offense, Grannie. There's nothing that please him like the truth, and there's nothing that displeases him like lying, particularly when it's pretended praise...you say some things about him sometimes that sound fearsome to me...
Like when you speak of him as if he was a poor proud man, full of his own importance and ready to be down on anybody that didn't call him by the name of his office - always thinking about his own glory, instead of the quiet mighty grand self-forgetting, all-creating being that he is. Think of the face of that man of sorrows that never said a hard word to a sinful woman or a despised publican. Was he thinking about his own glory, do you think? And whatever isn't like Christ isn't like God."
 
"But laddie, Christ came to satisfy God's justice by suffering the punishment due to our sins, to turn aside his wrath and curse. So Jesus couldn't be altogether God."

"Oh but he is, Grannie. He came to satisfy God's justice by giving him back his children, by making them see that God was just, by sending them back home to fall at his feet...And there isn't a word of reconciling God to us in the New Testament, for there was no need of that; it was us that needed to be reconciled to him...It wasn't his own sins or God's wrath that caused him suffering, but our own sins. And he took them away. He took our sins upon him, for he came into the middle of them and took them up - by no sleight of hand, by no quibbling of the preachers about imputing his righteousness to us and such like. But he took them and took them away and here am I, Grannie, growing out of my sins in consequence..."

Geo MacDonald: God and Nature

I plan to put out a series of posts of random quotes from George MacDonald, an all-time favorite author of mine (see Geroge MacDonald). Here are some of his thoughts about nature and God:

 
"I believe that every fact in nature is a revelation of God...from the moment when we first come into contact with the world, it is to us a revelation of God, his things seen by which we come to know the things unseen."

"The truth of a thing, then, is the blossom of it, the thing it is made for, the topmost stone set on with rejoicing...in anything that God has made, in the glory of it, be it sky or flower or human face, we see the glory of God, there a true imagination is beholding a truth of God."

"The heavens and the earth are around us that it may be possible for us to speak of the unseen by the seen, for the outermost husk of creation has correspondence with the deeper things of the Creator. He is not a God that hides himself, but a God who made all that he might reveal himself."

George MacDonald: What the Human Heart Most Searches For...

George MacDonald has this to say about searching for God and what most obscures our view of Him. Speaking of a character in one of his novels, MacDonald says the following:

"...his soul was searching after One whose form was constantly presented to him, but as constantly obscured by the words without knowledge spoken in the religious assemblies of the land. Little did he realize that he was longing without knowing it on Saturday for that from which on Sunday he would be repelled, again without knowing it...

"The greatest obscuration of the words of the Lord comes from those who give themselves to interpret rather than do them. Theologians have done more to hide the Gospel of Christ than any of its adversaries (have)..."

Not Regretting (Part 2): Why My 6 Reasons for Not Regretting Shouldn't Be an Excuse...

Following up on my previous post, 6 Reasons I Don't Spend Time and Energy Regretting, I will share
why those 6 reasons shouldn't be an excuse for not moving forward.

While I believe the reasons I cite for not regretting past ways of thinking of God are true and give me peace about the past, I am also aware of how easy it is to use those reasons as an excuse to settle in permanently to my present understanding of God. We humans long for something unchanging that will give us a sense of stability and certainty. In the particular world I was raised in this took the form of a set of beliefs about God that were said to be absolute. If any of those beliefs were questioned, I concluded that the person questioning it/them was at best not really solid in the faith and at worst, maybe not a true follower of Jesus.

Now that that some of those beliefs aren't as absolute as they were to me before and I'm at peace with that, I realize that my sense of stability and security was founded more on my beliefs about Jesus than on Jesus Himself. As I have ventured into a wider space in God where questioning is acceptable and even adventuresome, my sense of security and stability is in Him and I'm able to enjoy not being certain about everything.

And so rather than using my "6 reasons for not regretting" as an excuse for settling into another comfort zone, I see them as affirmations of a lifelong lifestyle of learning, unlearning and relearning (see Unlearning and Relearning to Keep Learning). I'm slowly getting it: except for a handful of core truths about God in Christ, I must hold what I learn loosely, enjoying different discoveries AND enjoying the mystery that there is in Christ and enjoying others who understand Him differently. The sense of security is not in having correct doctrines but in the faithfulness of His Spirit at work in me along with His people and His word.

6 Reasons I Don't Spend Time and Energy Regretting...

As I reflect on how much my thinking has changed about God and His kingdom, it's tempting to regret some of what I've been taught and have taught to many over the years. But the Spirit, who loves to encourage us, reminds me of a few bedrock realities that bring peace and hope to my heart:

First, the words of Paul to Timothy come to mind: "I’m reminded of your authentic faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. I’m sure that this faith is also inside you."  2 Timothy 1:5 (CEB)  Along with beliefs about Jesus that I inherited but now wonder about, I have always had authentic/sincere faith in Him. From my vantage point in life now, I see that this counts more to God than correct beliefs.

Second, He reminds me that I was born into a particular culture and generation and family that shaped my ways of thinking and feeling about Him and others and myself and about life in general. This was His doing and it wasn't a mistake. He doesn't hold this against me.

Third, He tells me that all healthy humans evolve in their thinking throughout their life and that this should be happening until the end of one's life.

Fourth, He shows me that it is the Person of Jesus who saves us, not correct beliefs about Him.

Fifth, He reminds me repeatedly that I will never be fully "correct" in my understanding of Him; no matter how much I grow and learn of Him, there will yet be an eternity of learning ahead of me because of the wonder and beauty and mystery of His Person (and of all persons).

Sixth, He tells me that He is well able to lead those that I have influenced in the past even though I now question some of what I taught them. Just as He is able to continually lead me forward in Truth, so He is able to lead them.

These reasons (and others) fill me with confidence in the Lord's ability to work with and lead His people no matter what we have been born into and have inherited related to mistaken mindsets about Him; and so, I don't spend much time or energy regretting the past...