What do you think about God?
A.W. Tozer once made this observation. He wrote,
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy
I don’t know what you think about when you think about God, but I believe everything for you hinges on how you answer that one question.
No way to get home
In his book, Unshakeable Hope, Max Lucado tells the story of Sara Tucholsky.
It was 2008. Sara was a softball player for the Western Oregon Wolves and they were playing a game against Central Washington University. The winner of this game would advance to the division playoffs. The loser would go home.
Sara wasn’t the strongest player on the team. She was only hitting .153 that season and her coach only put her in the game because the right fielder had muffed a play earlier. But that day something special happened.
When it came time for Sara to bat she walked up to the plate and faced the pitcher. There were 2 runners on base. They needed to win this game. She needed to move these 2 runners. And here comes the curve ball. Sara did her best. She stayed back and then swung her bat. And that day, in front of about a 100 fans in the Cascade Mountains Sara connected like never before and hit a home run over the left field fence!
She took off to round the bases, but she was so excited she forgot to touch first base! Her coach yelled at her to go back and touch the bag. And when she did, when she changed direction to go back to first base, something popped in her knee.
She went down in pain, crawling back to the bag. She pulled her knee to her chest. She didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t stand up. If she did, she would collapse. Her coaches couldn’t help her. If they did, the home run wouldn’t count. Same for her teammates. She looked at the umpires for help as she continued to suffer in pain. How in the world was she going to make it around the bases and touch home plate?
What happens when we fall?
For a lot of us, this is our problem when we start to think about what we believe about God.
Like Sara, we, too, have fallen. Not in a softball game, but in life. We’ve stumbled. We’ve struggled. In our morality. With our integrity. We have not always been honest. We’ve done things we’re not proud of and we’ve done some things that we’re absolutely ashamed of.
The distance between where we are and we want to be seems impossible.
For many of us, it’s in these moments where we feel distant from God. Like the prodigal son we don’t know if we can go home and if we tried to go home if we would be welcomed.
When we stumble and fall, when we struggle with sin, when we’re tempted and tried, it feels as if God is a million miles away. We fall and we don’t always know where to look for help. The problem isn’t that we’ve torn a ligament in our knee, but we’ve got a broken heart, a weary spirit, we feel defeated, alone, and unworthy.
We’re not sure we can turn to God because God is perfect. God is holy. God is sinless. And somewhere along the way we started believing that to be near God meant that we had to be perfect, we had to be holy, and we had to be sinless.
So where do we turn? Where do we go? What do we do? Where can we find help?
What is God like?
The good news is that over and over again, God shows us what He is like. Not only that, but He tells us what He is like. God makes declarations about His unchanging character that serve as promises so that we can know exactly who God is and what God is like.
You can see this over and over again throughout the pages of scripture and throughout the history of the people of God.
In Exodus 34, God has led the people to a mountain. It’s here, at Mt. Sinai, that the people of God will receive the word of God.
Moses goes up the mountain for a second time to receive the Word of God. The sin of the people has surely given Moses doubts as to what will happen next. While Moses had been on the mountain with God, they had grown weary of waiting on God and created a golden calf, an idol, to worship. Would God would be done with them in this moment? They’ve fallen. They’ve failed.
Here’s what happens when Moses returns to meet with God.
Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh.
I don’t know what you think about when you think about God, but right here we have a beautiful picture of the grace of God as God humbles himself to descend, to come down to where Moses is, to stand with Moses in his presence. And not only that, but to call out His name to Moses. YHWH. This is who I AM. I AM YHWH.
But God doesn’t just call out His name, He goes on to tell Moses, this is my name and this is what I am like…
The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,
“Yahweh! The Lord!
The God of compassion and mercy!
I am slow to anger
and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations.
I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.
But I do not excuse the guilty.
I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren;
the entire family is affected—
even children in the third and fourth generations.”
The God of Unfailing Love
Maybe you’ve wondered, what is God like?
Maybe in the middle of a pandemic, in the mist of racial injustice, in the difficulties of the economy, in a time when we’ve been isolated and we feel alone, you’ve wondered… What is God like, really?
Maybe when you’ve fallen and you’ve given in to your own struggles and temptations, when you’ve turned to things other than God, when you’ve found yourself at the bottom of a mountain feeling far away and disconnected to a God you’re no longer sure is even there, you’ve wondered… if God is there, what is He like.
Here in this moment, after falling deep in the sin of idol worship, after turning away from God after all God had done for them, God could have said a lot of things about who He is and what He is like. But this is what God said to Moses on the mountain that day…
I AM…
Full of compassion
and mercy
slow to anger
filled with unfailing love
faithful
lavishing love on a thousand generations
forgiving
just
After hearing this…
Moses immediately threw himself to the ground and worshiped.
The Promise
What do you think about when you think about God? Does it lead you to throw yourself down to the ground in worship?
If not, it may be because you don’t have the same picture of God that Moses had that day.
After personally witnessing the people of God fall, literally turn away from God to idol worship, while he was literally on the mountain with God receiving the word of God for the people… Moses thought the story was over.
But the story wasn’t over. God said, let me tell you what I’m like. THIS IS A DECLARATION OF MY UNCHANGING CHARACTER AND MY PROMISE ABOUT WHO I AM.
I AM full of compassion, slow to anger, and my LOVE NEVER FAILS.
Heading Home
That day on the softball field Sara was looking for help when her knee popped and she fell to the ground. The fans were yelling for someone to help Sara. But her coaches couldn’t help her. If they so much as touched her during the play she would be out. The same was true for her fellow teammates. She had to make it around the bases all the way home for the home run to count. But how?
The umpires were huddled up trying to quickly discuss what to do. This was an important game. The winner would advance to the playoffs and the losers would go home.
That’s when Mallory Holtman made a decision that changed everything. Mallory was the First Baseman for the other team. It was her Senior season. If her team lost, her season, her career, would be finished.
By this point, tears are streaming down Sara’s face. By the time they reached home plate, fans for both teams are on their feet cheering. Sara may have been in incredible pain, but she couldn’t stop smiling as her team welcomed her at home plate.
That’s a picture of what God has done for you.
The only one who could help has come to help you. His offer to you is the same offer Mallory made to Sara that day. “Let me carry you home.”
Let ME Carry You Home
You cannot make it on your own. But HERE’S THE PROMISE. This is what God is like. He is full of compassion, slow to anger, and His love never fails.
Maybe you’ve wondered if God could ever forgive you for what you’ve done.
Maybe you’ve had questions about what God is like.
Maybe you thought God couldn’t love you because of something you’ve done or because of something that was done to you.
Maybe you’ve turned away from God more times than you can count.
Maybe you’ve stumbled and fallen and you don’t think you can even ask God to pick you up again.
There’s good news for you today.
Jesus once carried a cross so that He could carry you home.
Jesus once gave His life for you so you could give your life to Him.
Jesus once rose from the grave so He could raise you up from where you are so you could be with Him.
And this is the promise we hold onto today, that even when you fail Him…
God’s love for you is never failing.
By the way, in case you’re interested, here’s Sara’s story as shared by ESPN.
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