Simple stories. Colorful pictures. Catchy songs. Animal crackers and juice.
This is exactly what I got growing up in Sunday school.
The God I learned about in my classroom was colorful and fun and meant to be approachable. He always seemed to have big, friendly eyes and a huge, warm smile. He was depicted as fair and kind. He was hard not to like.
As a kid, this was all completely appropriate for my young mind and young heart.
But you know what? As I grew up, my view of God never really made it beyond these elementary walls. And that one, my friends, has taken a HUGE helping of humility for me to be able to admit to myself…and now here to you.
I really hate to admit it but though I grew up doing all the Christian things every good little Christian girl ought to do, my perspective of God never really developed beyond these juvenile years.
This wasn’t really a problem for me though until I found myself in my mid-twenties with life and its unfair disappointments tossing me around a bit. Things were awful and I had become so disoriented. I was desperately trying to make sense of my world and my relationship with God. But I was trying to do so by looking through a lens that was warped and too small for me anyway.
My only view of God was introductory at best. And because God is so much bigger than what’s on the pages of a children’s Bible, it was only a matter of time before something was going to come along and challenge the heck out of it.
When this finally happened, my whole world was rocked.
Suddenly, I couldn’t get God to fit back into the colorful toy box I had always kept Him confined to.
Life had hit me hard in the face and my animated, pocket-sized view of God suddenly didn’t measure up. My little always-the-hero God suddenly seemed to have switched roles and now appeared to be acting more like the villain.
I thought God had betrayed me. I thought He had abandoned me.
But in reality He was positioning me in such a place where I could either cling to my childhood perspective of Him or I could choose to let it all go and let my faith grow up a little.
It was time for a slightly more grown up view of God. A view of God that is OK with a little bit of mystery. A view of God that is OK with some questions going unanswered. A view of God that will choose to trust Him and His heart even in the midst of disappointment and heartache.
He was asking me to put down my animal crackers and juice in exchange for my first real taste of Bread and Wine.
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