What is God like?

Have I mentioned that I’m teaching a class with JtM based on the Philip Yancey book, The Jesus I Never Knew? We’re having a great time – it’s a good class, with lots of discussion, and each week I learn something new.

As I was driving to work this morning, I was thinking about the class session we had last night. The CD Coming up to Breathe, by mercyme was playing, and the song Something About You started playing. It became interwoven with my thoughts:

Where…where do I begin
How do I say what’s on my heart with paper and pen
How …how can I describe
The God of all the universe and make it rhyme.

That’s kind of what the class is about – at least at this point. I hope people can begin to understand that the image of God we have is really much smaller than the God who created us and who sustains us. One lady last week said, “We create God in our own image.” How profound and how true.

Why…why do I even try
If I could speak the tongue of every man I’m still tongue-tied.
What can I say about you.
When everything I have won’t do
Oh it will not do.

The question asked last night was What is God like? It’s a huge question, and I think we all found it hard to answer. What is God like? He’s like nothing else, and yet, the paradox of it is, is that he is like you, and he is like me. Or, rather, we are like him. And also very much not like him. Clear?

As long as life runs through my veins
I will live to praise Your name
And if a hundred years I live
I won’t even scratch, I won't even scratch the surface.

I was trying last night to give people an idea of how big God is, so I used Job 38:19-20 as an example:

Do you know where Light comes from and where Darkness lives so you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get lost?
My point was that God is huge, and yet he chose to come to the world to as a tiny baby. I missed the comment that was made after I finished reading the verse, but remembered it this morning. God can take the light and darkness by the hand, and lead them home. The comment: And he takes us by the hand, too.

What is God like? He’s like that! He is so huge that He guides light and dark, and so small that He can hold our hand and lead us home.