God, I Don't Know

I recently wrote a reflection about what it might be like to meet God again for the first time. The idea was pretty simple: I've spent my entire life hearing about God, and by the time I was old enough to ask good questions, I already had a pretty elaborate picture of God in my head. What if I could set all that aside, and meet God without somebody introducing me first?

I've been thinking about that idea ever since, and it's led me to pretty obvious question: What even is God? Seriously – what are we talking about when we use that word? 

I started writing this thinking I had two things figured out: God is real, and our understanding of God is spectacularly wrong. The more I've wrestled with those statements, the less certain I've become about either one. Strangely enough, that doesn't bother me at all.

When I think about God, my brain naturally goes big. All-powerful. All-knowing. Somewhere out there running the universe. The kind of being who parts oceans and speaks through burning bushes. You know, God stuff.

But I've never personally experienced anything like that. So where did I get this picture of God? Mostly from people who got their understanding from other people, who got theirs from people who lived thousands of years ago. I'm not suggesting they were all wrong. I'm just wondering how much of what we call God is actually God, and how much is our attempt to explain something we don't understand.

Christians do something pretty interesting. We say that God is beyond human comprehension, then proceed to explain exactly what God wants, thinks, approves of, and condemns. Apparently, God is beyond comprehension, but we've got the whole thing pretty well figured out.

Lately, I've been wondering if I've been looking for God in the wrong places. I've spent so much time imagining God as something enormous and supernatural that I wonder if I've overlooked what's happening right in front of me. Take compassion, for example. Why do we care when someone else is suffering? Why do we go out of our way to help people, sometimes complete strangers, when there's nothing in it for us? I understand that psychology and evolution can explain a lot about why we behave this way, but I still find it extraordinary that we do. And I can't help wondering if there's something about that worth calling God.

Here's where Jesus becomes interesting to me. We say Jesus reveals God, but the Jesus I read about doesn't always resemble the enormous God I've imagined. He spends an awful lot of time eating with people, welcoming outsiders, forgiving enemies, and caring for people everybody else ignores. What if Jesus isn't simply giving us a better description of the God we've imagined? What if he's challenging the whole idea? Maybe compassion isn't just something God wants from us. Maybe it tells us something about God. Or maybe I'm wrong about that, too.

For much of my life, faith was presented as believing the right things. Learn the answers, affirm the doctrines, and don't stray too far from what you've been taught. But if I knew exactly what God was, how God operated, and what happened after death, why would I need faith? I'd just have information.

(Side note: I once heard that the opposite of faith isn't doubt – it's certainty? I’ve always appreciated that explanation.)

I don't know what God is, and I'm increasingly suspicious of anyone who claims they do. But what I can tell you is this: when I encounter genuine love, compassion, mercy, and the extraordinary ways we care for one another, I can't shake the feeling that I'm encountering something sacred. 

I don't know whether God is the source of those things, the name we give them, or something else entirely. I'm comfortable not knowing, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking.