God-view

As I'm preparing to give my full testimony in front of a group of people for the first time coming up soon (beyond telling snippets of it within conversations, like during small group), I have done some thinking lately about how to tell it all at once: where to start, what to include, etc. I haven't figured out yet exactly what will "make the cut," so to speak, but it has got me peering into the rearview and thinking way back to the first perspectives I ever remember having about God...

Growing up and developing a different world-view is one thing, but I believe I also had a distinctive "God-view" as a child. The concept of God was large and overwhelming but infinitely fascinating to me. I always thought of Him as personal and present, yet mighty and mysterious. The same way I simply yielded to the idea that Santa Claus could visit all the little boys and girls in the world in one night, based on his incomprehensible magical abilities alone, I somehow harbored the same kind of awe-inspired surrender to the fact that God could hear all the people in the world's prayers at the same time, listening and responding to each one but never getting confused. He was huge, He was "other," and yet He was available to me. That, I think, is my favorite God-view I developed as a kid.

I remember during the closing prayer one specific morning at pre-Sunday School (the half-hour of worship before Sunday School that included all the great old hymns and ended with some yummy snacks). I was pretty young and wondered to myself on this particular day why everyone prayed with their heads bowed down. Ever curious, yet thinking literally for once in my life, I was not happy with turning my face to the devil when I prayed... And so, while the rest of the folks in the room bowed their heads with eyes closed, I turned my face up to God for the remainder of the prayer. THAT, I figured, was real reverence, not the other way around. (I mean, talk about paying attention to whom you are speaking to!) But as cute as it sounds, and as many times that I fell off the path later in life, I think this was part of taking my first steps in having a personal walk with God and forming that relationship.

Speaking of the devil (no pun intended), another memorable concept was that of the two forces of good and evil in the world (I am pretty sure growing up with "Star Wars" had quite a hand to play in this). I remember having nightmares about God and Satan getting in these terrible battles up in the sky somewhere, God constantly having to fight him off and keep him from harming all of us down here. There was one night in particular that I woke up alarmed and afraid, horrified by the thought that, although God was more powerful and always came out on top, what would happen if He just got tired of fighting one day—and lost? What would happen to the world if God was not strong enough even one good time to fight off the devil? I remember running downstairs to my parents' room after that one, unable to shake it. But as terrifying and overwhelming as it seemed, I think that was part of a newfound awareness of the reality of spiritual warfare, something very real and threatening to the world even to this day.

There were other times that I would think about what had been said in Sunday School and during the children's sermons about Jesus always being there, all around us. Again, being the hyper-imaginative child that I was, I wouldn't just stop at the comfort of that thought, but I would take it very seriously, lying in the dark in bed at night thinking that if Jesus were to actually be standing behind me on the other side of bed, I would be so incredibly afraid. "If You are here right now," I remember thinking, "I love you, but please go away!" Yet as much as this seems over-dramatic or maybe like a misunderstanding on my part, I think it was actually the initial cultivation of having a healthy fear of the Lord.

It's so interesting to look back and see what has shaped our faith. It's so important to remember and reflect. I know I have definitely had large spans of time in my life when God was the last thing on my mind. But I hope that one day as I approach the throne, I will, like scripture says, enter like a child: believing, awed, inspired and receptive, full of boundless love and joy and, yes, wild enthusiasm. I don't think it is any coincidence that we become more like children as we grow older. This middle stuff—we draw in so tight and put so much focus on ourselves. So my hope is to make my daily walk take on more of child-like God-view, to live day by day as a child of God—in the truest sense of the word. Laugh openly, love fully, depend on my Father, revere Him for who He is yet revel in the time we spend together. Moment by moment.