Healing Our Image of God and Ourselves

This is from Chapter 1 of "The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus", by Brennan Manning.

"Religion is a matter not of learning how to think about God, but of actually encountering Him."

"Don't Put God in a Box"

To encounter God we must strip off all allusions of God that have been purported onto us.  We can't grasp the infinite that is God with our human finite minds.  God is the one and only God.  He is Love and so much more.  When we think about God we need to think outside our boxes.  Outside the box we try to put Him in.  We need to think big.  We need to know that our ideas aren't anything that God is, but He is so much more and bigger.

Look at the parable of the farmer and the workers.  It's in Matthew chapter 20.  Their is a crazy farmer hiring workers and it doesn't matter what time of day they start working for him, they all got the same wage.  All got a full days pay, it was "divine generosity".  Do we grumble when others get a break?  Why do we say "it's not fair" or someone "got a lucky break" when something good happens?

What about the parable of the prodigal son?  It's about a reckless, spendthrift who is a wasteful person.  Those are definitions of the word prodigal.  Yet the Father is also a prodigal.  Instead of treating the returning son the way we expect him to be treated, the father acts as a prodigal and is wasteful, reckless and a spendthrift in welcoming a disgraceful son back.  I think a more appropriate title would be "The Wayward Son and the Prodigal Father".

This is how our image of ourselves and of God need to change.  God is that farmer giving everyone the same pay and He is the father of the prodigal, welcoming home the wayward son.  We are that wayward child and we are the workers for the farmer.  We are getting what God wants us to have regardless of our lives or our actions as long as we come to God, He will take care of the rest.

Our images of God and ourselves change when we see Him as merciful, caring and more importantly loving.  Then we can we see ourselves as worth God's time and in need of His Salvation.  Try to look at things a little different.  You might surprise yourself.