Are there specific questions you hope to answer?
Growing up in church I did not question the meaning of “the term ‘God’ as
being synonymous with the idea of a loving creator,1I simply failed to
grasp the manners in which this love could be personally understood. As
Froese explains, “our initial introduction to God has a lasting impact on
how our brains function”2. Raised in a single-parent home, my mother was
very busy with work and continuing her education. Busy for my mother
often meant being swift to punish and still to this day I struggle with
performance-based love. I know the God is love, but I instinctively assume
I must earn it.
Over time, the pursuit of finding a place or group to fit in has ended in
some not-so-pretty situations. Ultimately, addiction and a destroyed
marriage allowed for a clearer assessment of my inability to maneuver
through life on my own, and as a result, I surrendered my life to Christ.
Now walking in victory over my addiction while growing more spiritually
mature and enjoying the beauty of a restored marriage, I still find myself
struggling with a misplaced sense of belonging. I desire a deeper
understanding of the Holy Spirit and an ever-growing relationship with
him, such as those depicted in the Bible. There is not a question as to the
involvement of the Holy Spirit. Rather, my questions are formed out of a
growing urge to go deeper. How to relinquish more of my need for
security and belonging through performance and realizing more of a
reliance on Him. How do I understand His character on a personal level by
stripping away the filtering through which I view Him? I am not naïve in
thinking my understanding of God can be without flaw on this side of
Heaven, but the ability to segregate those assumptions of authority that
have been transferred as a result of other relationships from those that
are accurate of who He is, is my desire.
Is there a personal goal in terms of experiencing God as
an outcome?
Along the way, I have stumbled upon countless portions of my thinking
that have apparently been solidified through the process of continual
assumption. I have come to realize the magnitude of the boundaries in
which I have placed around my savior. I never once questioned his nature.
However, I assumed a lack of involvement or distance was based on my
ability to perform in a manner worthy of identifying as His child. Through
this lack of asking questions, an elementary foundation was formed. There
was no wrestling, nor was there intimacy. Froese explains “that our image
of God does not emerge at random”3and after just a few days of thinking
over this topic and reverse engineering my perception of several close
relationships, my goal is to know God through the facets in which I am
least comfortable.
What might that be?
I desire a dynamic relationship under continual growth, not contingent on
the emotional sways of the atmospheric pressure of others approval. I
would like to better understand His character to then mature my
subordinate son of God mentality to that of the confidence clearly
explained in scripture.
How might this relate to your personal spiritual growth
and/or that of your church?
I currently serve as a counselor, mentor, and interim pastor within the
Arkansas Department of Corrections. Obviously, the life of an inmate is
tough. Inside the walls of the prison there are social dynamics at play that
I still struggle to comprehend, these dynamics hinder the inmates from
truly discussing their personal struggles. Any display of weakness is
dangerous for these men. All the while, outside of the prison walls there is
a community of people that do, and possibly always will, view them as
second class. The ability to articulate the framework of God’s character in
comparison to the way we as sinners perceive him can be life changing for
many of the men I work with.
1Froese, Paul, and Christopher Bader.America’s Four Gods : What We Say
About God-- & What That Says About Us(New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 15.
2Ibid., 15.
3Ibid., 55.
