God as Subject
Have you ever thought the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” was a tad curious? I’ve never understood it. One of my best friends is a guy named Jason Deugan. Most everyone I know calls him “Deugan.”
Never once in the more than fifteen years that we’ve been friends have I ever said, “I have a personal relationship with Deugan.” I asked him about this, and he said he’s never said that about me either – but he did once say it about Jesus.
What’s more confusing to me is that while we like to speak about having a relationship with Jesus; we often relate to God more as object than subject.
We have particular beliefs about God, and when we meet other people who believe the same things about God we can worship together. If they believe differently … well, they need to worship somewhere else. Most of the time when I hear people speak about God, or speak to God, it sounds peculiar.
I say this because I never hear a person talk about their spouse the way they speak about God. When I hear a parent talk about their child they don’t use the same words about God. When someone is describing their deepest, most intimate relationships with their friends it is not the same way they speak about their “personal relationship with Christ.”
Perhaps its because for many, God is an object not a subject. It’s safe to say that God isGod; nobody or nothing will change that. However, as a relational being, God relates to his sons and daughters differently. Much like the way I relate to my wife, kids, and friends differently.
It’s not that I change, after all there are things about me that are fundamentally true. Yet if you were to speak to different people who know me well, while there would be some overlap in what they said about me, there would be quite a bit of difference. Some of what you heard would even sound contradictory.
Why would we expect God to be any different? While there are some things about God that are true and unchanging he is in relationship with millions of people who know God and are intimate with God in an untold number of ways. This means there are unlimited ways of speaking about God as people who are in relationship with him.
Some of these descriptions may differ and even seem to contradict another. The response to this kind of thinking is often to quash any talk of God that does not fit into one’s own experience. We think that if God has not acted that way toward us, then it cannot possibly be true.
Perhaps it would do us good to listen to others when they speak of how they know God. We may learn more (and be able to share more) about a God that is beyond a “personal relationship” and is no longer an object to behold. Just like a good friend named Deugan.