You Might Have Invented Your Own God If...

I heard a quote yesterday.  I view it as a theological type of "You're probably a Redneck if." 

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”  (from Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott; on page 22 of Bird by Bird she attributes this quote to “my priest friend Tom”)

I think this is a wonderful idea...as far as it goes.  However, since there's an underlying thread in my life that pulsates with the idea that "nothing exceeds like excess," I think this idea can be taken in a whole bunch of other directions with equal or even greater relevance.

Here are some candidates:

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image if you imagine that your aspirations for yourself are the same as His aspirations for you.  The corollary:  He's got a lot more in mind for you than your imagination will entertain, or even allow.

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image if you imagine that everything that feels right (and maybe confortableto you is actually right.  The corollary:  Everyone is welcome as they are but everyone will be invited and even mightily challenged to change.  You shouldn't look for core theology to change so that you will feel more comfortable. 

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image if your righteous indignation carries with it an unnatural degree of logical justification.  The corollary:  The core concepts of Christianity are the core concepts of Christianity and neither benefit nor mutate based on new translation or interpretation.

Honestly, the potential in this construct is probably endless.  The thing I find sad in this is that all such attempts to cast God into something he isn't will be limited by our respective, individual brokenness...and we have enough of that without playing it back to ourselves dressed in a warped image of God. 

I think the confusion often surfaces here that God's peace is not at all the same thing as peaceful circumstance.  In this life there's no guarantee of "And they all lived happily ever after."  Instead, the promise is more along the lines of "And they all lived abundantly, lovingly and eternally."

I hope this makes you uncomfortable.  It makes me uncomfortable.  But that's OK because the invitation in discomfort is the realization that peace isn't a function of circumstance.  It's a function of Christ's redemption and the unique and beautiful wonder you were spoken to be.