We shape God

In Ortberg's Faith and Doubt he talks about how we view God.

Our experiences, our worries and doubts, our guilt, our mood -- all of them influence how we look at other people. We project all of these things onto the people standing in front of us. How we relate to people is effected by all of the things.

In the same way, says Ortberg, "we project our own falleness on God." I think that we reduce God to our own level. We can't provide grace to people, so we can't imagine that God would. We can't love unconditionally, so we can't imagine that God does. We seek revenge, so we give God that characteristic.

When something goes wrong in our lives, we blame God, because if he is all powerful, then surely he would cooose to use that power in a way that we would -- a way that is affected by our own sin (which would not shape God's use of his power).

When we should be following God, shaping our lives in response to the way that he would want us to live, we are instead shaping our perception of God by the way we live our lives.

It's backwards.

Image: Sunrise a couple of days ago.