Another Old One

OK, so in the Deity Formerly Known as God, he just made the connection to the fact that we see God as Our Parents – Supersized. He really spent a ton of time talking about how as parents, we are the first images of God for our children (that is kinda a weighty thing to bear). He used many examples of ways that children perceive God from those interactions, and how they can show in lives many years later and in the relationship and understanding of God. What it really said to me was, no wonder this generation is so messed up with all relationships, but God especially. No wonder there are so many atheists and people who won’t give God a real chance, because their image of God never gave them one. His god ran and hid, his god didn’t want any part of his life, so now why would he want to talk to that God?

I know we talk about the family a lot in church and that Satan is attacking the family, but we can’t just point out the attack, we have to defend against it. We have to aid in the rebuilding, we have to step into that place and show God to those who don’t get it from their parents. No wonder this generation gap is so huge. Most of the older generation do not have this perception of a God that abandoned them, they don’t see themselves as these unworthy screwed up beings, because (most of them) were not brought up in that environment. But the recent generations are completely missing out on God (or seeing him every few weekends and on half the holidays) and so their image is warped. But what do they reach out for? They reach out to help others, for love and acceptance of themselves, just as they are. But they are not finding this in the walls of the local church, they are finding this in organizations like TWLOHA and Invisible Children and TOMS and PostSecret and places where they are asked and expected to be honest. Where they are loved and asked to help others. Where they feel needed and fulfilled. Now I think it is a massive load of BS to say that God is not right there with them, that they are not experiencing God. But many are missing it because the do not want to see Him there, they do not want to make that connection, but they are still getting a new image of God. They just need someone/something to make that connection for them, to make their eyes be reopened to this God they had closed their mind to. They are so close, but will go to hell just the same. It is not a massive campaign that we need to start, and some of the movement needs to be that the church needs to be more of these God like things in the world than we are currently being. We need to support those ideas and organizations, then we need to nudge them and say, “That is God!” Or point and whisper, “Did you see it? That is the God I serve!” And, yes maybe at times shout, “Right there, the helping others, the supporting the needy, the mending the broke, the shoulder to cry on, the AUTHOR OF HONESTY, THE TRUTH, THE WAY AND THE LIFE. That is God!” (that is shouting like your team just scored a touchdown, not at the people themselves!!!!!) We have to mend people’s images of God that have gotten so thoroughly effed up along the way.

My summary of these differences would be in the conversation between the author and his mother about the author’s 5 years of therapy. “I asked her what she thought of my generation’s fascination with digging in the dirt of our past. Her answer was completely in keeping with the culture she grew up in. ‘I don’t see what good can come of it. I don’t see what the point is of digging up the pain and the problems of my past. How does it help me to point out all the things my father didn’t do right? If you ask me, it’s just another way of scapegoating the responsibility that each of us must bear for our own lives and our own choices.’ I understand where she is coming from, and I couldn’t disagree more. While it’s true that many get stuck in the false liberation of finger-pointing and finding fault in everything their parents did, I believe there is more there, deeper, underneath the surface where the seeds of life take root and begin to grow.” If we are to have the cross generational church, we are going to have to get the older generation to see the importance of this digging and searching and reaching out, and we have to let the older generation guide us past the finger pointing and scapegoating and get us to seeing how this effects us and how we can overcome it. We need the older generation in the church to help be the parents and mentors that some people never got.

Isaac