Fully Alive 2

“The glory of God is a human fully alive,” so said Irenaeus, and this line is both quoted and a theme for Trevor Hudson’s new book, Discovering Our Spiritual Identity: Practices for God’s Beloved.

The book is made up of 16 Signposts, or points along the way of a journey that will help us find our way toward becoming fully alive. Trevor Hudson’s book would be a great book for a Group Study.

Signpost #1: Our picture of God. Each of us has a picture of God somewhere inside us and this picture shapes our life.

So his question is this: What is your picture of God? Do you have time right now to pause and give this a good ponder?

This question is not designed so much to ask what you believe about God but instead probes the picture of God you have that is actually shaping your life. The two aren’t the same always.

William Temple: if we live with the wrong view of God, the more religious we become the worse we will become.

Trevor confesses that at one time he saw God as a passive spectator who applaused at his behavior when he performed well enough. So he sketches a few views of God:

Impersonal force produces cold relationships.
Heavenly tyrant produces joyless and fearful living.
Scrupulous bookkeeper produces people with internal contradictions.
Divine candy machine produces the disillusioned.

We live at the mercy of our ideas.But our picture of God can be redrawn. Trevor reminds us that, to begin with, we need to learn to see God as a boundless mystery. There is no one like God. God is wholly other. We learn to take off our shoes in this God’s presence.

The major theme he develops is that God is Christlike. I am reminded of Tom Wright’s observation: many of us think we know what God is like and ask if Jesus is like that God then he must be God. But Wright said we are to relearn that logic, and learn to think that because we know who Jesus is we can learn who God is. Trevor is in this camp of thinking.

The boundless mystery became Incarnate in Christ. Dare we take this seriously?

If God is like Jesus, what do we learn about God — or how do we re-draw our picture of God? — if we ponder the words and deeds of Jesus? The crucifixion of Jesus? And the risen and alive Jesus?