I originally called this article: “Needless Arguments Over a Multifaceted God.” That sounded too fancy-shmancy, hence the current title.
Many of you are familiar with the story of how 5 blind men were placed into close proximity with an elephant and asked to describe the elephant.
One man grabbed the elephant’s tail and said, “An elephant is like a rope”.
Another man ran his hands along the elephant’s side and said, “No, it is like a wall!” Yet another blind man felt the huge leg of the animal and described the elephant as being like a palm tree. You get the idea. All five men were accurate, yet very limited in their understanding of what an elephant is like by their perspective.
That’s how we get into arguments about God. We all have limited perceptions of Who God is. The Apostle Paul said that “we look through a glass darkly.”
There are some people who have wonderfully discovered Jesus as their Savior. This is the main aspect of God that they emphasize. Obviously this is a very important attribute of the Lord, but He is more than a Savior. Others see God as Father. Indeed, He is; however He also nurtures like a mother. Still others are in love with Jesus as their heavenly bridegroom. Scholars and others emphasize God as the Master Teacher. Scientists may zoom in on the “Creator” aspect of God.
The fact is, all of the above are right and yet only seeing just a part (however important) of Who God really is. In my own life I have gone through phases of relating differently at different times to this multifaceted God. In one season I have leaned on (and still do) the Fatherly aspect of God. In another season I became intoxicated with the thought of Jesus as the Lover of my soul, my Heavenly Bridegroom and I wrote songs of intimacy (as some derisively say- the “Jesus is my Boyfriend” kind of songs.) From one who has been on a quest for real intimacy that was severely thwarted by abuse in my childhood, this facet of God is very important to me. But that, by far, is not all that God is.
He is the Creator, the Sustain-er of that creation. He is Redeemer, He is Teacher, He is Healer, He is the Mighty Warrior. (For awhile we in the church focused almost exclusively on that aspect of God.)
We could save ourselves a lot of time and energy if we could learn that, like the blind men with the elephant, God is bigger than we individually could describe. Let others focus on the trunk or the tail or the side or the leg for awhile, and trust that God will help them get to know Him in other ways. Hope that they also will be patient with you, because, like it or not- believe it or not, your view of God is limited too! Let’s all extend grace to each other and honor each person’s process of getting to know the Lord.
After all, I will eventually get around to an aspect of God that you are also discovering and we can rejoice that God is so vast that it will take eternity to get to know Him!
Check out this excerpt from a recent message “The Great Unveiling”
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