What Comes Into Your Mind When You Think About God?

Author and Pastor AW Tozer offers this thought that I'd like to unpack a bit - “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

What do YOU think about when you think about God? According to Tozer, how you answer this question will most likely reveal your core posture when it comes to God and inform the decisions you make in life.

Let me quickly show you what I mean with a few scenarios:

Do you find yourself working hard to stay between the lines, doing what is right, obeying the "law," as it were, as if there might be imminent trouble around the corner if you would mess up or step out of line? If this scenario describes you then you probably tend to think of God more of a divine police officer who is more interested in busting you than blessing you.

Perhaps you find yourself dialing up conversations with God when you need something. Maybe you gravitate towards God during seasons of panic, last minute "what-do-I-do-now" moments? I get it. Life gets crazy. Perhaps you should have planned better. You thought you had it covered but alas, you did not, so you run to God to get a little something-something to hold you over until the next crisis. If this describes you, then you probably think of God more of a divine drive-through to go to when you need him.

Maybe you feel like you're doing a lot of good in this world for people and even for God. That's awesome! You serve. You give money to the church or to charities. You even feed the homeless and from time to time, donate clothes and other gently used items to Goodwill. If you're honest, you'd even say "I'm doing a lot right now. God, I could really use your blessing." If we're all honest, we've leaned that direction once or twice and have felt that God owes us something. If this is you, you tend to think of God as one who owes you something. You don't say that outright, but you feel it. I have certainly been here.

Maybe you view God as a Father who is cheering for you at a ball game. He knows you're not the most talented. He's gets you didn't practice as hard as you should have. Still, you're his kid and he loves you and cheers for you all the same. If this is how you view God, there is a certain freedom in you that takes risks, explores possibilities, and maybe even encourages others to do the same.

Consider your own thoughts about God and you may be confronted with some guilt and regret if your experiences with God was a challenge. Or, you may dial up gratitude & gratefulness from those seasons where you felt like things were going well with God. I don’t know you all but I know this about you - we share a diverse set of emotions, both healthy and unhealthy when it comes to what we think about God.

We’re human. We don’t always get it. We think we know better. We get impatient.

Still, we live in the tension of such emotions and sometimes, irreconcilable thoughts about the motive and methods of God. Why did God do this? Why didn’t he do that? What was he thinking!? Ever asked these questions? We start to tell ourselves stories that may or may not be true about God, us, and how God moves through the day. When we do this, we begin to define God by our own experiences, good and bad, and before long, we have created a new God that is not a Biblical God.

We don't mean to do this. It's not intentional to be sure. However, when God or God's people begins to fall short of our expectations, we will slowly and certainly subtly begin to reach to other ideas, other people, other helpful initiatives to accomplish what we think ought to happen. It's just what we do. I cannot tell you how many times my mind has gravitated to each of the scenarios above.

We need to recalibrate when this happens. How do we do that? I'm not going to give you a formula for thinking straight about God. I don't want to do God's job for you and I'm not fully sure exactly what YOU need. I'm simply going to point you/us back to a prayer that has historically served a tribe of Jesus-followers on a road back to intimacy and alignment with God. This simple prayer has put God back in his rightful place as the sole source and supply of grace and goodness in my life.

I hope and pray it will do the same for you.

"Investigate my life, O God,

find out everything about me;

Cross-examine and test me,

get a clear picture of what I’m about;

See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—

then guide me on the road to eternal life." Psalm 139:23-24 (The Message)

I pray these thoughts bring value to you and your faith walk.

Peace & love to you all. Paul