God

How to describe God? My first inclination is to be as short possible. God is such that the longer I go on, the likelier I am to say something wrong. Verbosity can lead to heresy, as it were.

Still, I did say I would go into the topic, so...

I could present a lengthy list of attributes, but that wouldn't be what I am about here. Rather than talk about what God is, I am more concerned with God as He relates to us. And how doe He do that?

1) As a Father.
With apologies to those who find the idea of God as a male figure, the reality is that God has chosen to relate to us primarily as our Heavenly Father. That does not mean that there are not feminine aspects to God, but those are clearly secondary. As a father he seeks to protect and provide for us. He seeks to be generous, giving to us out of the bounty of His love for His children. He also is concerned for our growth and development in terms of character. To that end, He is our disciplinarian and teacher.

2) As a Judge.
Some might think that relating to us as a a Judge is incompatible with relating to us as a Father. I find the two to be nicely complementary. As our Father, God knows us perfectly, and so is perfectly able to judge us. How can we expect to get more fairness than from a Judge who both knows us perfectly and still loves us perfectly? That fairness does not guarantee a verdict in our favor on all issues; He will call us on our bad behavior whenever it occurs. But we know that our discipline will be truly commensurate with our crime, and we can take comfort that the disciple comes from someone who is neither arbitrary nor uncaring. Quite the contrary.

If any of this sounds familiar, it is because I have basically posted how God's love and God's justice hold together. Many times I hear people ask how God can be loving if He is willing to allow people to go to Hell.

Hopefully the above shows how God is not only perfectly able to do that, He is the only ONe we should want to do so.