Buckle Your Seatbelts, Part 1

I’ve been going through The Sacred Romance with my small group lately, and the chapter we just studied hit me so hard, my mind is still reeling. Here is a 3-part blog that tries to encapsulate from what I’m learning…please read the whole thing and let me know what you think.

Have you ever wondered if God feels? Emotions, I mean. I’ve found myself sometimes thinking that God is not prone to emotions. I’ve inadvertently assumed over the years that He’s relatively even-keel and not given to extreme feelings of pain or pleasure. Almost like a big computer in the sky...I think, “He’s in control of things, He’s not affected or changed by people, and everything’s going to be okay because He’s not temperamental like me. And He loves me, too, and that’s awesome.”

But then I wonder…how can He love me without feeling extreme emotion? How does that work? What kind of love can that be?

Hold that thought.

Suppose I am a non-believer who has really never understood who God is or why in the world I should spend my life loving Him. How would you answer me?

Perhaps you would say that He is all-powerful, all-loving, the Creator of the Universe… that He died for my sins, offering me eternal life…and all of these things are fantastic, but I’m still not quite clear on what kind of person He is. Is He even a person? Does God have a personality, or is He just this Being that I’m supposed to revere and obey? ‘Cause that’s all well-and-good, but if I’m going to really love someone and enjoy spending my life with them, I want to actually like the person. So…do you like God?

Think of the people you like to hang out with. Why do you enjoy them? What is it about your true friends that makes you want to spend time with them? Well, they’re fun, right? And probably smart and funny and you have things in common…basically, you like their personalities. Now, if we are to be friends of God as it says in Matthew, there has to be a mutual liking. We know that God likes us (did you know that? that’s another blog…), but do you like God’s personality?

I personally think it would be hard to like someone who is completely emotionless. No excitement, no passion, no drive. It would be frustrating, because that person wouldn’t understand what I go through if they’re not prone to the same emotions I experience every day. So, is God really like that? Because if so, I might be in trouble…

How do we find out what God’s personality is really like? Take a minute and think of nature. Think of the creatures you see on the Animal Planet. Think of mountains, geysers, sunsets…God created these, yes? Looking at all of this, what are some things you can gather about God’s personality?

Obviously He has a sense of humor. And I know you want to say He’s creative, but look deeper. What is one of the greatest characteristics of creative people? They are passionate. Their art comes from places of deep feeling—be it joy, anger, pain, whatever. And I don’t know about you, but when I look at the natural world around us—and even at the people around us—I would say that we are living in the greatest work of art there ever was. So perhaps—PERHAPS—our über-creative God does, in fact, feel.

Let’s look at this logically. We are created in God’s image—man and woman. And that does not apply simply to physical features, but to our souls and, on a smaller scale, personalities as well. That’s right, kids, our inner beings were created in God’s image. That being said, where did all of our emotions come from? The dirt? Our sin nature? No! They are all part of the deal! Now, obviously the sin part associated with our emotions didn’t come from God, but the feeling-part totally did. So if we feel such extreme emotions as we do, what does that tell us about our Maker?

Continue to Part 2.