Who Is Your God?

 When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He identified Himself:  I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

In my last entry, "We Believe," I wrote about faith in God not only in terms of our own stories, but in terms of the faith and friendship of those we love and trust.  When I hear how God has worked in your life, your story extends my own experience of God and increases my awe of His glory and Presence.

When God says to Moses, "I am the God of your father," He identifies Himself with the stories Moses has heard from his own family.  Although this may be Moses' first encounter with the Divine Presence, he undoubtedly has heard and absorbed family stories going back hundreds of years of how this God revealed Himself to the Israelites.  So already Moses knows something about this God who now reveals Himself to Moses.

I am the God of Abraham.....Who was Abraham's God?  He is God in search of man before man begins to search for God.  He is the God Who calls in the depths of our souls, "Come, and I will show you...."  

The God Who says, "Get up, leave this place and come to a place I will show you."  The God who has a plan for us:  I will bless you and you will be a blessing!  Not just bless us, but bless all those who are connected to us generation after generation.  

When we read the stories of the Bible, it might be helpful to ask ourselves, "Who is the God of Isaac,.....of Jacob.....of Moses....of David....of Mary.....of Jesus?

As we ponder these stories, we come to know not only their God but our God ---- the God of our fathers and mothers, the God of our friends and heroes.  We, too, have our stories but have not attended to them in terms of Who God has been to us.  If God is to be found anywhere, surely it is in our histories.  Spiritual directors often tell us to look back over our lives in ten-year sections, searching for where God has been in each decade of our lives.

Most of us in our youth, I would hazard to guess, sneered at the stories our parents told us -- if indeed they spoke of God at all.  And yet, now that we are old, we might look back with reverence on those stories as well as our own experience, and say to God, "I had heard of you with my ears, but now I behold you with my eyes!" (Job 42:5)