GENESIS 3:8<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0God as he was walking\u00a0in the garden in the cool of the day…”<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It was a Sunday and we were on our way home from church. It\u2019s a good thirty-minute drive through farmland past hay bales and cows and horses to which the kids yell out \u201ccow!\u201d and \u201chorse!\u201d every single time, despite the fact that this is not a rare thing. We were talking about God and what they thought He looked like (like their daddy apparently, which is kind of sweet and metaphorical at the same time) and then we were talking about what they thought Jesus liked\u2026definitely kids and hiking and hummus, but not olives. He probably also liked telling jokes and was friends with all the bugs except spiders.<\/p>\n

Kids are great at filling in the details. They\u2019re great at imagining a God who laughs at Jesus while He tells a joke and all the quirks that make Him three-dimensional. They are so much better than I am at making Him real.<\/p>\n

And this, I think, is why Jesus said to look to the little children for faith.<\/p>\n

I pray every day. I pray over the sink, under my breath when traffic is terrible, in bed at night. But I\u2019m honestly not sure what I picture when I try to picture God. When I think of His personality traits, I picture the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.) dancing around like Schoolhouse Rock characters. But I still don\u2019t have a picture to make Him real. When I think of God in the Old Testament, I picture Charlton Heston. And when I try to picture Him in the early days, walking through the garden in the shade on the lookout for Adam, I just see wind in the trees.<\/p>\n

But I like how my kids see Him. I like how He is so fully-formed. I know most of their attributes for Him are themselves personified and not very biblical. But I like that He\u2019s not a picture on a wall, not a flat character. Maybe He does<\/em> like hummus and not olives.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m asking God to fill out a little bit more for me. I\u2019m asking Him to color in the picture I have of Him so I can better live like I might very well run in to Him in the cool of the day. The clearer He gets, the harder He is to avoid.<\/p>\n

C. S. Lewis once wrote,<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSo go on! You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man behind all the plaster dolls that have been substituted for Him. This is the appearance in Human form of the God who made the Tiger\u00a0and\u00a0the Lamb, the avalanche\u00a0and\u00a0the rose. He\u2019ll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ\u00a0can\u00a0be loved and admired as the doll can\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m aiming for God, not a doll. I\u2019m aiming for reality, not illusion. I\u2019m aiming for every true thing I can tack on to His nature so that He stops looking like a watercolor picture in my mind. I\u2019m not going to lie and tell you this isn\u2019t a little intimidating. It\u2019s like the \u201cyour will be done\u201d part of the Lord\u2019s Prayer. You say it, but you always hope it will swing in your favor. Here\u2019s to hoping I\u2019ll see God walk out of the avalanches and<\/em> the roses.<\/p>\n

Sunday Thoughts Link Up!<\/strong><\/h1>\n

It’s time for another Sunday Thoughts Link-Up! I know there are many out there with wisdom that could encourage all of us. As long as it’s faith-based, I’d love for you to join up and then read and comment on what others have shared. Please also leave a comment here. Think of this as a Sunday morning community group that comes to you. And grab the button if you like…<\/strong><\/h3>\n

<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a good thirty-minute drive through farmland past hay bales and cows and horses to which the kids yell out \u201ccow!\u201d and \u201chorse!\u201d every single time, despite the fact that this is not a rare thing. We<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/2017\/09\/10\/gods-face\/\"> …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,22],"tags":[214,97,27,46,281,48,253,55,54,17,24,375],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/godsface.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-Ue","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3486"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3497,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3486\/revisions\/3497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}