My personal relationship with God

Today I was asked about my personal relationship with God. I am asked, “Do you understand that God personally loves you?” I hear another member of my Sunday school class say, “God loves us so much, and he just wants us to love Him back.”
Each of us is a reflection of God. In each of us is an image of our creator as unique as we are. I wonder though, if we don’t also limit our understanding of God by remaking Him in our own image?

I believe that we are each born with a God shaped hole in our hearts. I have seen cultures reject God and then feel compelled to reinvent Him in some other guise. Filling an inborn need for spirituality with crystals, or incense, or God Himself renamed. I hear them chant, “The Power of the Universe is Light and Love.” And I think, “Yeah, you’re right.”

The flipside of rejecting God, I think might be recreating Him in OUR image. Recreating Him as our best friend, our confidant, our slightly oversized eternal Father figure waiting for us to climb up into His lap and pout about our hard day at work. I’m not really saying that there is anything wrong with feeling a personal connection with the Creator. I am saying that in over personalizing our image of God we run the risk of losing our sense of SCALE. We are, after all, talking about the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Architect of the Universe.

So, I’m sitting in Sunday school class today, surrounded by people I know well enough to make a down right fool of myself in front of (a fact that my wife continues to fail to appreciate). But today is different. Today I am asked about my personal relationship with God. My, “personal” relationship with God. Well, I don’t know. I mean, I have thought about my sense of place in God’s creation. I have thought about my responsibilities to God and my family. I have (often) thought of my debt to God for giving me life and love, for my family, for simply allowing me to participate. I thank God for letting me live a life that is much more than I deserve. I thank God for my Wife, and my Son. Two people in my life I sure as heck don’t deserve. I think of and thank God, every waking day of my life. But as to my “personal” relationship with Him, that’s a trickier topic.
I would sooner ask a flounder about his relationship with the sea. A fish is of the sea, he is from the sea. His proportions are derived from a life in the open water, far from land in the cold blue currents. The sea is his home, his sustenance, his protection; his very life’s blood runs with the same measure of salt. And yet, what can we expect that fish to know about all the wide oceans? Perhaps there is some flounder out in the North Atlantic right now, contemplating his personal relationship with that little patch of water where he sits. What sort of grasp do you suppose he has?

But here, we are not talking about some dumb fish at the bottom of some puddle of water, we are talking about the Soul of Man, and his relationship with The Creator, He that breathed light into the Stars! How about that?

As you might be able to tell, I have thought a lot about the SCALE of God. I see those pictures come back from the Hubble, and I think about the light, and the dust, and the stars being born in distant reaches of this tiny little galaxy we float around the edges of, on our tiny little raft of rock, and I am humbled by my own insignificance. Surly the Master of all creation has far more important things to do than to care about my day. Right?

But, in thinking this, am I not limiting God? Am I not imposing the limits of my ability to comprehend on the Creator Himself? And in the face of my doubt, I know, I KNOW conversations I have had with God over the years have not all been one sided. I have had many hard lessons handed to me that have steered me along this narrow, rocky path. I have seen the hand and face of God too many times in my life to believe in anything but his direct guidance and influence on the direction of my life.

So which is it? Is God this roiling infinite sea of creation far beyond the understanding of we few motes floating in the middle of some boundless universe? Or is He that loving, guiding force I know to have helped steer the course of events in my life. You know, I really don’t understand it, but I’m going to have to say, “Yes.” Yes he is, to all these things and more I am sure. So much more than this little minnow can understand, that much is for sure.

If you know me, you have probably heard me say that, “I know very little, but I suspect a great deal.” Having said that, there are a few things I believe right down to my very marrow: That no matter how far man travels, he will never out reach the beauty of God’s creation; and, I am loved by my creator. For this reason, I will forever be indebted to He who knew me before I was conceived.
That, my friends, in a nutshell, is my “personal” relationship with God.